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W THE 






YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND ; 



THE DUTIES, TRIALS, LOVES, AXD HOPES OF WOMAX. 



DESIGNED FOE 



Tlie Young Woman, 

Tlie Young "Wife, 

And. tlie Mother. 



v 

By DANIEL C. EDDY, D.D., 

PASTOE OF TUB BALDWIN PLACE CHUBCU, BOSTON. 



y- y ^ " In that stillness 

^j j / Which most becomes a "Woman — calm and holy, 

s\/ 1 ;/ Jr Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart, 

/ *-H * Feeding its flame." 






NEW EDITION. 



BOSTON: 
HORACE T^E^T^WORTH, 

119 Washington Street. 
1866. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SGG, by 

HORACE WENTWORTII, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



23 1JTP 




ED AT THE 
TYPE FOUNDRY, 
LANE. 



PKEEACE. 




FEW years ago the " Young Man's Friend " was 
published. It has already passed through more 
than fifty editions, and over one hundred and fifty 
thousand cojries have been sold. The generous 
patronage bestowed upon that work, the commendatory 
words spoken of it, and the evidence from various direc- 
tions that it has been useful, have led to the publication of 
this volume. 

It is the hope of the author that this humble work may 
contribute to the formation of honorable and beautiful hu- 
man character, lead the mind of the reader \o a higher 
conception of the aims and purposes of life* unfold and 
develop the graces that adorn and bless humanity, and lead 
those who find no rest here to the great Source of rest, the 
Redeemer and Saviour- of the world. 

In unostentatious garb, it endeavors to set before the 
reader several striking -Scripture characters, with such com- 
ments on- each as may be calculated to impress truth, and 
enforce the great lessons of morality and religion. For an 

(5) 



6 PREFACE. 

evident purpose these characters are taken from the order in 
which they are found in the Bible, and transposed to suit the 
purpose had in view in the selection of the group ; and it is 
believed that there will be found here nothing to vitiate the 
taste, deprave the morals, or wound the heart. 

With an earnest prayer that the work may be " a friend 
indeed," it is sent forth on its mission. If it shall succeed in 
planting in the bosom of one person a principle of integrity, 
kindling in one soul an aspiration for the true, the beautiful, 
and the sublime, it will not have been published in vain. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

MISSION OF WOMAN. 

Page 
Eve — an innocent woman — a tempted woman — a fallen wo- 
man. Woman not designed for the field or the forum — for 
charity — for home — for religion. Mrs. Sigourney. Joan of 
Arc. Charlotte Corday. Mrs. Newell. Mrs. Judson. True 
objects of life. Where woman appears best — how best 
moves the world — how renders herself happy. Educated 
women. Royal dames. Mothers in Israel. Beauty of piety. 
Hope of heaven. 11 

CHAPTER II. 

THE DUTIFUL DAUGHTER. 

Jephthati's Daughter — her history — her fate. Beautiful 
instances of obedience to parents. How such obedience 
adorns a daughter's character — improves her manners and 
her heart. Illustrations of the happy effects of such obedi- 
ence. Home made sacred. The self-sacrifice. How daugh- 
ters may add to the happiness of their parents. Lost children. 
Solicitude for children. Children in heaven 28 

CHAPTER III. 

THE GOOD MOTHER. 

Reeekah. Taking a wife. Visit to Mesopotamia. Themis- 
tocles. Strange courtship. Marriage — the place. Twin 
brothers. The sad deception. Woman on the stage. Ex- 
traordinary pair in Germany. Berzelius. Barrow. Milton. 
Swift. Walter Scott. Dr. Blair. Clavius. Davy. Dryden. 

Sheridan. Dr. Scott. Clarke. Mirabeau 49 

(7) 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE MARRIED STATE. 

Rachel. Bramante. Raphael. Michael Angelo. The flight 
of Jacob. Leah. Serving for a wife. The country of Laban. 
Fancy marriages. Parlor and kitchen. A disappointment. 
Good mothers. Good sons. Ornaments. The royal line. 
The Messiah 68 

CHAPTER V. 

MOTHER-IN-LAW DAUGHTER-IN-LAW. 

Ruth. Naomi. Rural habits. A whole family. A broken 
family. Going to Moab. Orpah. Contrast. Naomi's ex- 
postulation. Arrival at Bethlehem. Charities of life. Boaz. 
Courtship. Strange custom. Loosing of the shoe. Develop* 
ment of character. Tender relations. Step-parents. Reli- 
gious decision 88 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE PRAYING MOTHER. 

Hannah. Shiloh. Sorrowful woman. Cause of joy. A 
praying mother. Richard Knill. Bishop Hall. John Q. 
Adams. Cowper. Dr. Young. The old woman. Serious 
considerations. Daniel Webster. A mother's grave. Re- 
straining influences. Dr. Wayland. Woman in Boston. Dr. 
Todd. Our mothers . .106 

CHAPTER VII. 

FEMALE EDUCATION. 

Queen of Sheba. Solomon. Extravagance. Party in Phila- 
delphia. Italian circles. Educating daughters. Female 
education to embrace scientific researches. Political economy. 
Religion. Religion contributes to grace of person — to affa- 
bility of manners — to human happiness — to eternal life. 
Contrast between Christ and the king. Hallam. Mrs. Sig- 
ourney. Salvation. 128 



CONTENTS. 9 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE DISAPPOINTED ONE. 

Abigail. The drunkard's wife — her lovely spirit — her supe- 
rior character — her disappointment — her disgrace — her 
interview with David. Duty to the wives of drunkards* Use 
of sympathy. Use of love. Hope for the fallen. . . . 148 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE UNFAITHFUL WOMAN. 

Delilah. Samson. Treachery of Delilah — conflict of du- 
ties — her real character — reasons for her course — the effects 
of her treachery. Duties of wives. Principles regulating the 
intercourse of husbands and wives. How far a wife is bound 
to obey. Importance of understanding the conjugal relation. 
Sources of evil 168 

CHAPTER X. 

PROPRIETIES OF MARRIED LIFE. 

Sarai and Hagar. Early institutions. Family relations. 
Early bondage. Polygamy. The rival wives. Abraham in 
Egypt. The deception. A diseased race. Sin per se. The 
first w r oe in the family. Cruel treatment of Hagar. Mor- 
monism. Slavery. A slave auction. Deference to husbands. 
Courtesy at home . . 188 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE SISTER OF CHARITY. 

Dorcas — her life — death — resuscitation. Mrs. Newell. Mrs. 
Judson. Value of a letter. Self-denial. Bunyan's wife. 
Mrs. Adams. Mrs. Tracy. Florence Nightingale. Bettina. 
Lucretia Mott. Dorothea Dix. Elizabeth Fry. Mrs. Win- 
throp. Rebecca Eaton. Consecrated wealth. Sanctified tal- 
ents. Usefulness in humble life. Sisters of St. Vincent de 
Paul. The springs of action. The worthy motive. Con- 
clusion 208 



PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 



In editions prior to 1866, we published, of the four following books, 
more than one hundred and forty thousand of the " Young Man's 
Friend; " of the " Young Woman's Friend," published four years 
later, over fifty thousand; more than one hundred thousand of the 
" Angel Whispers," and seventy-five thousand of the " Heroines 
of the Church," under another title. We now propose arranging 
these works in sets, uniform in size and style of binding. The 
" Heroines of the Church " has been republished in England and 
Holland, and many thousands sold. Rev. Dr. Cumming, of London, 
in editing the English edition of this work, says : " This little volume 
appears to me likely to enlarge and augment the labors of Christian 
females, to evince to the Church of Christ their value, and the duty 
of availing herself of their precious resources yet more extensively, 
and to make us more deeply grateful to God that his grace has raised 
up for us Christian females, notwithstanding our insensibility to their 
worth, who have proved themselves examples' of tenderness, zeal, 
and successful missionary exertions." 



THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 



CHAPTER I. 

WOMAN'S MISSION. 

EYE. 

She wept — to leave the sunny flowers 

That gemmed the sylvan scene, 
And danced, like fairy revellers, 

Upon the glittering green, 
Which almost offered rivalry 
Unto the bright and glorious sky. 

She wept — that all the shining host 

That gazed upon her then 
Should never light her steps unto 

That sinless bower again ; 
But hence her heritage should be, 
To toss on life's wild, billowy sea. 

She shall be called Woman. Genesis, ii. 23. 

/^jfa^HIS earth which we inhabit has rising from 

/j its surface some towering mountain peaks, 

%£_^ now ranged in order, like the rocky ridges 

of the west, and now standing alone, like 

Etna or Vesuvius. For ages these mountains have 

(ii) 



12 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

stood looking down upon the plains below, smiling 
or frowning on the world, which holds the even 
tenor of its way in the wooded forests and fertile 
valleys of the earth. There are vast plains which 
men have never trod ; there are vast forests, wide 
deserts, which have seldom been mentioned, and 
when mentioned are not remembered. But the 
towering mountains are known, and are remem- 
bered. Sinai, Ararat, Carmel, Horeb, Zion, and 
Calvary can never be forgotten. Their moral 
grandeur rises higher than their physical eleva- 
tion, and they stood before the ages as the sum- 
mits from which God has spoken. And so with 
meaner mountains around which cluster no sa- 
cred memories. What Scotchman that has ever 
seen old Ben Lomond towering over the Loch has 
ever forgotten it ? What Swiss peasant, wherever 
he has wandered and in whatever clime he has 
died, has ever forgotten Mont Blanc, the monarch 
of mountains ? 

What mountains are to the surface of the globe, 
exalted character is to human society. Stretch- 
ing away back through society are characters 
rising from the dull monotony of level life that 
can never be forgotten. They dot the record 
of ages as mountains dot and diversify the world 
of nature. There are but few of them, but 
the few are immortal. The mass — the thou- 



THE WOMEN OF THE BIBLE. 13 

sands, the millions, and tens of millions — have 
sunk down .forgotten and lost; but these live, 
fresh and fragrant. To a few of these characters, 
noticeable for their position in history, for their 
virtues or vices, we propose to call attention in 
a series of articles on 

THE WOMEN OF THE BIBLE, 

as they illustrate female life and character. 

First in the illustrious catalogue — - the mother 
of us all — ■ stands Eve, to whom we not only 
trace our origin, but our woes. Adam was 
created first. He was placed in Eden, with its 
pleasures and its delights around him. But he 
was alone. The beautiful birds of heaven sang his 
matin and his vespers ; the lion gamboled at his 
feet, the lamb ran by his side ; but he could hold 
no intercourse with these ; they were below him 
in the order of being, and he wanted a conscious 
intellect to communicate with his own. The 
angels were sent down to speak with him, and 
they folded their glad wings over his head at 
night, forming such a pavilion as never sheltered 
any human being before or since. But they were 
celestial spirits, and the heart of Adam yearned 
for a fellow of his own nature, like himself, man, 
and subject to human- passion. It may be a 
reason why God did not create Adam and Eve 



14 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

at the same time, that he wished to show his 
creature that it was not good for him to be alone, 
that he might realize the value of his companion 
when she was received. When this purpose was 
accomplished, God caused Adam to sleep ; and 
when he was unconscious, his side was opened 
and a rib taken out, and that bone became in a 
single hour a beautiful, cultivated, charming 
woman. Various reasons may be mentioned 
why God did not make Eve, as he did Adam, 
out of the dust of the earth ; but one is obvious. 
He wished the woman to be a part of the man, 
that he might not be tempted to shake her off, as 
a being not connected with him. She was bone 
of his bone, flesh of his flesh, not independent 
of him, but linked by the nearest ties to his own 
nature. He took the rib out of his side, instead 
of taking a bone from the head or foot, that 
Adam might be taught the equality, not the 
superiority or inferiority, of his wife. 

The surprise of Adam when he awoke must 
have been great, to have found Eve gazing upon 
him, watching his slumbers, and kindly waiting 
for him to awake. It could not have taken long 
for an acquaintance to have been formed. The 
nature of Adam yearned for such a being, more 
human and yet more beautiful than the angels, 
and he took her to his bosom as a gift divine. 



EVE AS AN INNOCENT WOMAN. 15 

There are three portraits of Eve which have 
come down to our times, and at which we take a 
passing glance. They are fresh, though the dust 
of six thousand years has been falling on them ; 
they are vivid, though all time has been drawing 
traces on them. The first is 

EVE AS AN INNOCENT WOMAN. 

As our first mother came from the hand of God, 
she was perfectly holy. Her nature needed no 
regeneration to fit her to become the partner of a 
holy man ; and when Adam woke from his sleep, 
and gazed upon the beautiful being at his side, 
there was no shame on her brow, and no guilt on 
her soul. She could look up into the face of 
God, as an innocent child looks up into the face 
of a kind and affectionate parent, without the 
least emotion of fear. 

She was also perfectly happy. She was created 
for just such a world, in just such a state as she 
found herself in ; she found all her wishes grati- 
fied, and all her desires met ; she was in the very 
element which her soul needed, and her fertile 
imagination could stretch itself to no higher or 
more ecstatic enjoyment. Her spirit was the 
swell of a delicious harmony, on the pure breath 
of which struck no discord. Hers was a heart 
bounding with pleasure at all she heard, and saw, 
and felt. 



16 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

She was also perfectly beautiful. There is now 
nothing material so beautiful as a finely-formed 
human countenance. But the personal beauty 
of our first mother must have been greater than 
our conception. The human countenance and 
form have been undergoing constant changes for 
six thousand years ; personal beauty has been 
deteriorating, until we have now only a meagre 
burlesque on what God first made so perfect and 
complete. It is said that on one occasion an 
Athenian artist wished to make a beautiful statue, 
and in order to render himself successful, he 
sent for all the most beautiful maidens in Greece, 
that he might select the finest feature of each, 
and blend all into one image of loveliness. 
Our first mother realized the dreams of that 
artist ; and the symmetry of her person and the 
beauty of her countenance were equalled only 
by the innocence and purity of her soul. What 
a magnificent portrait do we have of Eve before 
her fall! All the mines of the earth have not 
gems enough to decorate the frame for such a 
picture ; and since Eden was desolated by sin, the 
world has no gallery gorgeous enough in which 
to hang it. The second portrait presents 

EVE AS A TEMPTED WOMAN. 

We pass over a few weeks, months, or years, — for 
we know not how long Eve lived in sinless enjoy- 



EYE AS A TEMPTED WOMAN. 17 

inent, — and we find a wonderful, sorrowful 
change. The portrait we now have, though con- 
taining many evidences and characteristics of the 
original, has some new features. Satan has en- 
tered Eden, and we behold the signs of a gathering 
storm. We gain nothing at all in clothing the 
account of the temptation in allegorical drapery. 
The serpent naturally is one of the most beauti- 
ful of all the tribe of reptiles. His shining dress, 
his crested head, his charming eye, are all beau- 
tiful ; and we can account for the enmity which 
exists on the part of our race towards the ser- 
pent only on the ground of the natural aversion 
which God has made to exist between the seed 
of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Sa- 
tan entered into the form of a serpent. Eve had 
been accustomed to see the reptile. He had 
coiled around her form in playful moods, and 
now he spoke to her. The fanciful Adam Clarke 
believed that Satan took the form of an ape when 
he appeared to Eve ; but the word of God does 
not justify the idea. The sin to which Eve was 
tempted is not known. It might have been to 
pride, which has ruined so many of her daugh- 
ters ; to covetousness, which lurked in bowers 
where the imagination could scarcely ask for 
more ; to jealousy, which sometimes exists where 
there is no rival ; to lust, in the presence of spot- 
2 



18 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

less purity and innocence ; to hate, amid the 
meltings of infinite love. The exact sin which 
our first mother committed is not told us. It 
is enough to know that she did what God had 
forbidden. See her as she converses with the 
serpent ! Pier form inclines towards her foe, 
and her eyes sparkle with unusual brilliancy, 
as the archfiend discourses to her. She is 
already charmed. The heavens gather black- 
ness, but she does not behold the threatening 
storm ; shadows fall heavily all around her, but 
she heeds not the falling shades ; angels flit by 
and whisper to her, but she hears not their 
voices. " Lead me to the tree of knowledge," 
she cries ; and her fair hands clasp in the agony 
of the struggle between innocence and sin. With 
joy he led the way, through tangles and mazes, 
and she followed. 

" Hope elevates, and joy 
Brightens his crest ; as when a wandering fire, 
Compact of unctuous vapor, which the night 
Condenses, and the cold environs round, 
Kindled through agitation to a flame, 
"Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends, 
Hovering and blazing with delusive light, 
Misleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way 
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool, 
There swallowed up and lost, from succor far, 
So glistered the dire snake, and into fraud 
Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the tree 
Of prohibition, root of all our woe." 



EYE AS A FALLEN WOMAN. 19 

But Eve will not eat. The stern, terrible com- 
mand of God rings in her ears, and she stands 
half subdued, and almost lost. Satan beholds 
her faltering, and says, — 

" Queen of this universe ! do not believe 
Those rigid threats of death : ye shall not die : 
How should you ? By the fruit ? It gives you life 
To knowledge. By the threatener ? Look on me, 
Me, who have touched and tasted, yet both live, 
And life more perfect have attained than fate 
Meant me, by venturing higher than my lot. 
Shall that be shut to man which to the beast 
Is open ? or will God incense his ire 
For such a petty trespass ? and not praise 
Hather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain 
Of death denounced ? " 

EVE AS A FALLEN WOMAN. 

The deed was done. The tempter had succeeded, 
and Eve had taken of the forbidden fruit. The 
beauty upon her countenance is gone, and 
there gather the clouds of shame ; the flowers 
at her feet have faded, and thorns spring up 
all around ; dim shadows seem to flit through 
those abodes of peace, as if inhuman inhabitants 
had made their entree, and every vestige of 
grace and loveliness to that fallen woman seemed 
to have changed. With her stricken and sinful 
husband she flees to the groves, gathers the fig 
leaves, 



20 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

" And, with what skill they had, together sewed, 
To gird their waist ; vain covering, if to hide 
Their guilt and dreaded shame ! O, how unlike 
To that first, naked glory ! Such of late 
Columbus found the American, so girt 
"With feathered cincture ; naked else, and wild 
Among the trees on isles and woody shores. 
Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part 
Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind, 
They sat them down to weep ; nor only tears 
Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within 
Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate, 
Mistrust, suspicion, discord, and shook sore 
Their inward state of mind, calm region once 
And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent ; 
For Understanding ruled not, and the Will 
Heard not her lore ; both in subjection now 
To sensual Appetite, who, from beneath 
Usurping over sovereign Reason, claimed 
Superior sway." 

But we are dwelling too long on these life 
pictures, and we proceed briefly to consider the 
mission of woman. As Eve stands at the head 
of the race, it is proper that she should be its 
representative. The purpose for which she was 
created is the main purpose for which every 
woman was created ; and when we discover why 
Eve was given to man, we can detect the sphere 
and walk of -all her daughters; What, then, is 
woman's sphere? Certainly not in the field. 
God never made her to be a slave, to plant the 
corn and raise the grain which should be the 
support of man. The constitution of woman, 



EVE AS A FALLEN WOMAN. 21 

her physical organization, the structure of her 
material nature, show that she was not designed for 
hard, out-of-door sendee. In the old countries of 
Europe, it is not seldom that the traveller sees a 
woman hard at work in the field, or driving her 
mule to market, or bearing a heavy burden on her 
head, while her husband looks on unconcerned ; 
and while she toils, he smokes, enjpys himself, de- 
pending on her for his support. This is an entire 
disarrangement of the whole order of nature, an 
entire perversion of the whole purpose for which 
woman was brought into being. That woman, 
more than man, should live without work, we do 
not contend. Labor is a- condition of life, and 
women, as well as men, are subject to it. But the 
kind of work which should be assigned to woman 
is written in her very nature, and those perverted 
views which originate in debased minds and coun- 
tries are unworthy of our race. 

Nor was woman designed for the tented field. 
Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, fancying herself 
called of God to a military mission, buckled on 
the armor, and placing herself at the head of the 
French army, gained several brilliant victories, but 
expiated her -folly by being burned at the stake, 
and having her ashes cast into the Seine. The 
famous Charlotte Cor day left her home, and jour- 
neyed to Paris, and there finding the bloody Ma- 



22 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

rat, plunged her weapon to his crime-blackened 
heart. Now and then, some woman has appeared 
to perform a soldier's work ; but Joan of Arc, and 
Charlotte Cor day, and every such woman, have 
been out of the sphere in which God placed them. 
A woman on the tented field, amid carnage and 
blood, shouting with the victor, escaping with 
the fugitive, or carousing with the dissipated, is 
as much out of place as an angel in the councils 
of the bottomless pit. 

Nor is the forum her place. The public debate 
and the legislative assembly can derive no dignity 
from her presence and participation. God has 
not granted to woman those natural faculties 
which will render her fitted for a. public office in 
the debates of men. If it had been her province 
to chain men by eloquence, He who does all 
things well would have given her a voice which 
would have sent its electric thrill, or rolled its 
deep thunders, over vast crowds. But woman has 
no such gift. Public speaking does not come 
within the line of her duty ; and when she thrusts 
herself forward as an orator or a declaimer, she 
has mistaken her calling, and departed from her 
Heaven-appointed sphere. 

Nor is woman at home in the pulpit. Christ 
called no woman to preach in his day, nor have 
we any evidence that he 4ias called any since. 



EVE AS A FALLEN WOMAN. 23 

He chose men from different walks in life, and 
with different degrees of mental culture ; but he 
did not, of all the Marys and Marthas which sat 
at his feet, or watched around him, choose any 
one to bear his gospel to a world in sin. 

Where, then, is woman's sphere ? 

At Home. Home is woman's throne, where she 
maintains her royal court, and sways her queenly 
authority. It is there that man learns to appre- 
ciate her worth, and to realize the sweet and ten- 
der influences which she casts around her ; there 
she exhibits the excellences of character which 
God had in view in her creation ; and there she 
fills the sphere to which divine providence has 
called her. Chateaubriand discourses thus on this 
theme : " Man, in uniting himself to her, regains 
a part of his substance ; his soul, as well as his 
body, is incomplete without his wife : he has 
strength, she has beauty ; he labors in the field — 
he does not understand the details of domestic 
life ; but his companion prepares the repast, and 
her smiles sweeten existence. He has his crosses, 
and the partner of his couch is there to soften 
them ; his day may be sad and troubled, but in 
the chaste arms of his wife he finds comfort and 
repose. Without woman, man would be rude, 
gross, and solitary. Woman spreads around him 
the flowers of existence, as the creepers of the 



24 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

forest decorate the majestic oak with their odorif- 
erous garlands. Finally, the pair live united, and 
in death are not separable ; in dust they lie side 
by side, and their souls are reunited beyond the 
limits of the tomb." 

The value of all social life, the beauty of all 
domestic intercourse, depend upon the mainte- 
nance of the position of woman at home. Uniting 
on their marriage day, the husband and wife have 
each duties to perform — she in her household, 
and he in the field or the workshop, on the forum, 
at the bar, or in the pulpit. Thus, and thus only, 
do they fulfil the great design of God, who made 
a helpmeet for man, and called her Woman. 

" When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up, 
And topples down the scale. * * * 

Man for the field, and woman for the hearth ; 
Man for the sword, and for the needle she ; 
Man with the head, and woman with the heart ; 
Man to command, and woman to obey : 
All else confusion." 

"We might remark that her place is in the sick 
room, where her soft hand has such soothing 
influence on the brow of the dying ; in the social 
circle, where her influence has such power to 
soften and subdue the rougher nature of man. 
But we leave these points, to consider her at 

The Altars of Piety. In ancient Rome stood 
the temple of Vesta. This divinity had six 



EVE AS A FALLEN WOMAN. 25 

priestesses, who were chosen for their beauty, in- 
telligence, and virtue, while between the ages of 
six and ten years. Their duty was to keep alive 
the fires on the altar. Day and night they 
watched the flame, relieving each other at inter- 
vals, and devoting thirty full years to the holy 
watch of Nunia's hearthstone. So woman now 
is nowhere more exalted than when she watches 
and worships at the altars of religion, keeping 
alive the sacred fires of faith and love. There is 
something in the nature of woman which renders 
religion a more congenial subject, and which 
leads her to attend more earnestly to the claims 
of God. Man always has had a controversy with 
God, and holds, out to the last. Woman yields 
the points, folds her hands, and waits the bidding 
of her Lord. It is no disparagement to woman 
that she submits to the claims of religion so early ; 
it is her highest and truest honor ; and they who 
sneer at piety because a larger proportion of wo- 
men than men become its subjects, pay it the 
highest compliment in their power. If woman 
becomes convicted more readily than man, it is 
because her nature has not sunk so low as his. 
An irreligious man is an object of sadness to an- 
gels ; but an irreligious woman must move their 
deepest sympathies, and call forth their most ten- 
der regrets. The woman shines brightest when 



26 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

she waits upon God, and spends her life in the 
cultivation of a firm and trusting hope. 

Of all the women mentioned in the annals of 
the past, who are those whose memories are cher- 
ished with the greatest affection ? Herodias shone 
in festive halls ; but who loves to think of her, or 
dwell upon her life and death ? But there was 
Mary, who sat at the feet of Jesus, and looked up 
into his mild, clear eyes, whose memory is em- 
balmed, and whose name will go down with bless- 
ings to the end of the world : there was Martha, 
who was anxious to see provisions made for Christ, 
her guest, and who will be beloved as long as the 
race exists : there was Dorcas, who made gar- 
ments for the saints, and whose h^nds and house 
were stored with memorials of charity. Her 
memory is fragrant still, though she has been dead 
eighteen centuries. 

And of modern women, who are loved and hon- 
ored in death ? Is Joan of Arc, or Charlotte Cor- 
day ? Is Madame Roland, or Madame de Stael ? 
No. But Harriet Newell, and Ann. H. Judson, 
and Esther Butler, and that host of women who 
have made their graves in dark lands, — 0, they 
will be remembered and loved forever. 0, yes, 
piety is woman's brightest ornament, her truest 
glory, her noblest support, and her richest treas- 
ure. If she has piety, she has what God most 



EVE AS A FALLEN WOMAN. 27 

designed her for, and which will be her comfort 
here and her life hereafter. Piety has been 
beautifully compared to " a carpet, soft and deep, 
which, while it diffuses a look of ample comfort, 
deadens many a creaking sound. It is the cur- 
tain which, from many a beloved form, wards off 
at once the summer's glow and the winter's wind. 
It is the pillow on which sickness lays its head, 
and forgets half its misery." In her sphere, wo- 
man is like the moon, reflecting the rays of the 
sun, and holding her steady course ; wading oft 
through misty clouds, but emerging more beauti- 
ful than before ; giving light to all, but producing 
confusion for none. Her life should be a calm, 
holy, beautiful walk from the hearthstone to the 
altar fire ; from the bosom of her family to the 
throne of God. Between these points lie all her 
duty and destiny. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DUTIFUL CHILD. 

JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER. 

She hath caught the fair splendor, 

She hath heard the low, tender, 
Melodious warble at heaven's high gate, 

And she says, " I am weary ! 

The night time is dreary ; 
Dear Saviour, that lov'st me, I know thou dost wait 
By the River of Life, at the Beautiful Gate ! " 

She was his only child : besides her he had neither son nor daughter. 
Judges, xi. 34. 

/ "SJjii'HERE is a world of domestic meaning 
i\ treasured up in these few words. Jeph- 
^rly thah was a judge in Israel, and was called, 
in his official capacity, to lead the army 
against the enemies which surrounded the people 
on every side. On one occasion he was sent against 
the Ammonites, who came against him with long 
legions of warriors, well prepared for battle. Be- 
fore the engagement, Jephthah went to God, and 
besought a glorious victory. He solemnly vowed 

(28) 



jephthah's daughter. 29 

before God, that provided victory should crown him 
with its laurels, he would, on returning home, sac- 
rifice whatever came forth first out of his house, 
as a burnt offering to the Lord. His vow was sol- 
emn, and made from an honest heart, and with an 
unyielding determination. It was recorded on 
high, and rang in the warrior's ears as he rushed 
into the battle. Victory was won at length, and 
Ammon was smitten, from Aroer unto Minnith. 
Flushed with victory, elated with success, deco- 
rated with the spoil of vanquished foes, the con- 
quering judge returned to Mizpeh. As he came 
near, the vow, the solemn, awful vow came into 
his mind, and his manly heart resolved to exe- 
cute it. Soon the royal residence was seen in 
the distance, and his soul was in haste to meet 
those he loved. Steadily he gazed, to see what or 
who should come forth first from his gates. The 
beast, the man servant, or the maiden was to be 
offered as a burnt sacrifice. While he advanced, 
the doors were thrown open, and the sound of 
music and song came pouring forth ; and soon a 
gay and happy company rushed to welcome the 
returning victor, and decorate his head with flow- 
ers. But ah ! who is she that leads this gay 
throng of maidens ? whose voice is sweeter than 
the rest ? whose timbrel is more nicely tuned ? 
and whose bosom swells with the wildest emotion ? 



30 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

And what means it that the victorious chieftain 
stops j and rends his garment, and mourns aloud ? 
What means it that tears of grief roll down the 
face so lately wreathed in smiles, and anguish fills 
the bosom so recently heaving with ecstatic joy ? 
It is his daughter that has come forth to greet him, 
and his fatal vow falls on her. 0, what to him 
now is victory ? She is his only child ; and be- 
sides her he has neither son nor daughter. She 
it is who has been the light of his home, who has 
fanned his head when weary and faint, who has 
sung him to sleep at night when nothing but her 
voice could dispel his cares, and who has made his 
life a scene of happiness. That home now is to 
become an altar on which she is to be laid as a 
victim, and he himself is to be the priest who 
shall make the sacrifice. 

The daughter, who has already heard of the 
victory, sees that some terrible calamity has fallen 
on her sire, and she runs to him, winds her arms 
about his neck, and compels him to tell her all. 
With all a father's fondness he gazes down into 
her mild eyes, and expects to see her at once con- 
vulsed with sorrow. But he beholds no such 
manifestations of grief. Without a tear, without 
a sigh, she calmly says, " Your vow, dear father, 
must be fulfilled, and let the thing be done : only 
give me a' respite of two months, and I shall be 
ready." 



jephthah's daughter. 31 

This whole scene, so affecting, so full of inter- 
est and pathos, one of our own sacred writers has 
woven into the thrilling melody of poetry. He 
takes the tender scene, and blends it into charm- 
ing verse : — 

" Onward came 
The leaden tramp of thousands. Clarion notes 
Rang sharply on the ear at intervals ; 
And the low, mingled din of mighty hosts 
Returning from the battle poured from far, 
Like the deep murmur of a restless sea. 
They came, as earthly conquerors always come, 
With blood and splendor, revelry and woe. 
The stately horse treads proudly ; he hath trod 
The brow of death, as well. The chariot wheels 
Of warriors roll magnificently on ; 
Their weight hath crushed the fallen. Man is there, 
Majestic, lordly man, with his ^sublime 
And elevated brow and godlike frame, 
Lifting his crest in triumph — for his heel 
Hath trod the dying like a wine press down. 

The mighty Jephthah led his warriors on 
Through Mizpeh's streets. His helm was proudly set. 
And his stern lip curled slightly, is if praise 
Were for the hero's scorn. His step was firm, 
But free as India's leopard ; and his mail, 
Whose shekels none in Israel might bear, 
Was like a cedar's tassel on his frame. 
His crest was Judah's kingliest ; and the look 
Of his dark, lofty eye, and bended brow, 
Might quell the lion. He" led on ; but thoughts 
Seemed gathering round which troubled him. The veins 
Grew visible upon his swarthy brow, 
And his proud lip was pressed, as if with pain. 
* * * * 

A moment more, 



32 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

And he had reached his home ; when lo, there sprang 

One with a bounding footstep, and a brow 

Of light, to meet him. O, how beautiful ! 

Her proud eye flashing like a sun-lit gem ! 

And her luxuriant hair ! 'twas like the sweep 

Of a dark wing in visions. He stood still, 

As if the sight had withered him. She threw 

Her arms about his neck ; he heeded not. 

She called him * Father,' but he answered not. 

She stood and gazed upon him. Was he wroth ? 

There was no anger in that bloodshot eye. 

Had sickness seized him ? She unclasped his helm, 

And laid her white hand gently on his brow, 

And the large veins felt stiff and hard, like cords. 

The touch aroused him. He raised up his hands, 

And spoke the name of God, in agony. 

She knew that he was stricken, then, and rushed 

Again into his arms, and, with a flood 

Of tears she could not bridle, sobbed a prayer 

That he would breathe his agony in words. 

He told her ; and a momentary flush 

Shot o'er her countenance ; and then the soul 

Of Jephthah's daughter wakened ; and she stood 

Calmly and nobly up, and said 'twas well, 

And she would die." * * * 

Some have questioned whether Jephthah's 
daughter was really put to death. The conclu- 
sion is so awful that they have shrunk from it, 
and have assumed that the vow was evaded in 
some way unknown to us. They have argued 
that the Jewish law did not admit of human sac- 
rifices, and that certain allusions in the sacred 
narrative indicate that the maiden was put to trial 
in another way, but was allowed to escape with 



jephthah's daughter. 33 

her life. But though this is the merciful view of 
the case, it does not seem to be warranted by 
Scripture. The days in which the transactions 
occurred were dark and clouded. Israel was 
surrounded by nations of idolaters, with whom hu- 
man sacrifices were common ; and doubtless Jeph- 
thah had caught some of the rude and barbarous 
notions of those with whom he had mingled. 
Uniting the superstitions of idolatry with the lofty 
integrity of Hebrew faith, he had made a terrible 
vow, which he considered himself bound fully to 
execute. Let loose from his hand, his daughter 
wandered upon the mountains, bewailing her fate, 
and preparing herself for her sad sacrifice. When 
the time had expired, she returned to her father, 
who did unto her according to his vow; and the 
Scripture record is, " the daughters of Israel went 
yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah, the 
Gileadite, four days in a year." 

But what improvement shall we make of this 
beautiful case, this striking illustration of devo- 
tion ? Our condemnation of the father, who pur- 
sued a course entirely inconsistent with the spirit 
of true religion, is lost in our admiration of the 
maiden who gave herself up a victim to a vow 
which her sire had made, and over which she had 
no control. 

The first thing that strikes the mind is the 



34 



ready obedience of the daughter. She did not 
hesitate to give herself up to the hard fate to 
which she was doomed, but when the hour came 
was prepared for it. Obedience to parents is not 
always so readily yielded, especially in the times in 
which we live. These days are emphatically days 
of disobedience and disregard of parental re- 
straint, and not a few of the children of the most 
pious and devoted parents openly trample the 
restraints of home, the counsels of affection, and 
the law of God beneath their feet. No crime is 
more severely condemned in the Bible than this 
irreverence for parents ; and no virtue is more 
frequently applauded than the opposite trait of 
character. " What state of society," asks one, 
" can be blind to the meaning of the imprecation 
which was pronounced at the entrance into the 
promised land, and joined in the same doom the 
idolater and him who should ' set light by his 
father and mother ' ? What philosophy can gain- 
say the sage of the book of Proverbs, whose sen- 
tentious moralizing rises into prophetic grandeur 
as he speaks of the unnatural son ? — "The eye 
that mocketh at his father, or refuseth to obey his 
mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, 
and the young eagles shall eat it." Who needs 
any interpretation of the feelings of David, or Jo- 
seph, or Solomon, in their joy or trial ? How 



jephthah's daughter. 35 

heart-rending was the grief of the Psalmist over 
his recreant son : < Would to God I had died 
for thee, my son, my son ! ' What beauty, as 
well as simplicity, in the inquiry of Joseph for his 
father, when the prime minister of Egypt dis- 
missed his courtly train, and weeping aloud, could 
only ask, ' Doth my father yet live ? ' What 
grandeur — far above its gold and gems — sur- 
rounded the throne of Solomon, when he rose to 
meet his mother, and called her to a seat at his 
right hand ! ' And the king said unto her, Ask 
on, my mother, for I will not say thee nay.' 
What pathos and sublimity in the Saviour of men, 
when, embracing home and heaven in his parting 
words on the cross, he commended his spirit to 
the eternal Father, and intrusted his mother to 
the beloved disciple's care ! We need no more 
than this to show how the gospel glorifies the law, 
and crowns its morality and piety alike in perfect 
love : ' Woman, behold thy son,' i Disciple, be- 
hold thy mother.' Hear the amen that goes from 
Calvary to Sinai, and honor thy father and thy 
mother." 

And yet it must be confessed that the parents 
of our times fail so to live as to draw out the re- 
gard, affection, and respect of their children. 
The great law of God concerning family govern- 
ment is disregarded, the provisions of infinite wis- 



36 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

dom for the good of the people are not complied 
with, and children grow up unrestrained. The 
universal condemnation of children for a want of 
reverence and respect for parents should at least 
be shared by parents, who let their children grow 
up without sound, serious advice, and wholesome 
and salutary restraints. Many parents, who mean 
well, are frightened from the path of duty by the 
foolish cry of " over-severity," raised by impracti- 
cable philanthropists and half-crazy religionists. 
No greater mistake was ever made than to sup- 
pose a child is harmed by being restrained within 
proper limits. It is folly to imagine that evil will 
come from restraints and just discipline. The mis- 
take is only made by those who deny to children 
even innocent recreation and wholesome pleasure, 
of which there are enough in the world. The 
parent who goes beyond this is wronging the 
child ; indulgence and parental fondness become 
a sin when they allow a child to walk amid pitfalls 
and dangers. Such indulgence is a weakness 
which will ruin the child, which will involve the 
parent in disgrace, which will defeat the end of 
the parental relation, and which will be punished 
by the Almighty, as a sin against himself. 

" It is a mistake," says one who has well studied 
this subject, " to suppose tliat children love their 
parents less who maintain a proper authority over 



jephthah's daughter. 27 

them. On the contrary, they respect them more. 
It is a cruel and unnatural selfishness that in- 
dulges children in a foolish and hurtful way. 
Parents are guides and counsellors to their chil- 
dren. As a guide in a foreign land, they under- 
take to pilot them safely through the shoals and 
quicksands of inexperience. If the guide allow his 
followers all the liberty they please, — if, because 
they dislike the constraint of the narrow path of 
safety, he allow them to stray into holes and down 
precipices that destroy them, to slake their thirst 
in brooks that poison them, to loiter in woods full 
of wild beasts or deadly herbs, — can he be called 
a sure guide ? And is it not the same with our 
children ? They are as yet only in the preface, 
or, as it were, in the first chapter of the book of 
life. We have nearly finished it, or are far ad- 
vanced. We must open the pages for these 
younger minds. If children see that their par- 
ents act from principle ; that they do not find 
fault without reason ; that they do not punish 
because personal offence is taken, but because 
the thing in itself is wrong, — if they see that, 
while they are resolutely but affectionately refused 
what is not good for them, there is a willingness 
to oblige them in all innocent matters, — they will 
soon appreciate such conduct. If no attention is 
paid to rational wishes, if no allowance is made 



38 



for youthful spirits, if they are dealt with in a 
hard and unsympathizing manner, the proud spirit 
Will rebel, and the meek spirit be broken. Our 
stooping to amuse them, our condescending to 
make ourselves one in their plays and pleasures 
at suitable times, will lead them to know that 
it is not because we will not, but because we can- 
not, attend to them, that at other times we refuse 
"to do so. A pert or improper way of speaking 
ought never to be allowed. Clever children are 
very apt to be pert, and if too much admired for 
it, and laughed at, become eccentric and disagree- 
able. It is often very difficult to check our own 
amusements ; but their future welfare should be 
regarded more than our present entertainment. 
It should -never be forgotten that they are tender 
plants committed to our fostering care ; that 
every thoughtless word or careless neglect may 
destroy a germ of immortality ; ' that foolishness 
is bound up in the heart of a child ; ' and that 
we must ever, like watchful husbandmen, be on 
our guard against it." 

How beautiful was the conduct of Jephthah's 
daughter, and what devotion to her father did she 
show when she said, " My father, if thou hast 
opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do with me as 
thou hast named " ! Thank God*that he does not 
require of children any such sacrifice as Jephthah's 



jephthah's daughter. 39 

daughter made ; but he does require obedience, 
filial love, and respect, and a kind, rational rev- 
erence. 

We are also taught a lesson upon the solemn 
nature of a vow to God. A vow is a solemn 
affirmation before God, and I do not know as it is 
forbidden in the Scriptures. There are vows 
mentioned in the Bible of various kinds, and 
many instances are on record to show that their 
non-fulfilment was followed with the most terrible 
consequences. Men now are taking vows — judi- 
cial vows, marriage vows, church vows, social 
and political vows, — and how often are vows 
broken. Go into our courts of justice, where 
men are sworn in the most solemn manner to tell 
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
truth, and what do you hear? Men who have 
been found in a state of intoxication swear sol- 
emnly that they do not know where they obtained 
the poison which made them drunken the day be- 
fore ; or, if they can tell that, do not know what 
they drank. The perjury in our courts of justice 
is terrible, and the broken vows which are piled 
up in our temples of law are legion. Nor is 
perjury on this subject alone common. False 
swearing is frequent on all subjects. Men swear 
falsely for their friends, for money, and for repu- 
tation — for any thing they want, and can secure 



40 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

by it. But a few days since, we were told of a 
father and mother, who, to save a guilty son, 
took false oaths as to his age, that they might 
shield him from the penitentiary. The marriage 
vow, how often is that broken ! What mean the 
constant applications for bills of divorce ? What 
mean the constant efforts to change the divorce 
laws ? What mean the bickerings and strifes in 
families, the separation of the married parties, the 
desolation of homes ? All traceable to the vio- 
lations of the marriage vow. And then the vows 
to God and his church. What becomes of them 
ere the ink on the paper is dry, or the echo of the 
solemn words of fellowship have died away ? 

A vow never should be made without serious 
thought ; and when made, it should be sacredly 
binding. There is an old proverb, that " a bad 
promise is better broken than kept." Perhaps 
so ; but it is even far better than that, that a bad 
promise had better never be made. 

The warrior Jephthah made a solemn vow ; 
he never should have made it. It was a rash 
promise — a promise which God did not demand 
of him, but which he sacredly kept. 

We are also taught something, in this connec- 
tion, of the sorrow of parting with children. 
This brings us to a part of our subject which is 
interesting to all who sustain the parental rela- 



jephthah's daughter. 41 

tion ; for where is the parent who has not lost a 
child? Where is the family of long standing 
which this affliction has not visited ? 

Jephthah was an iron-hearted warrior. He was 
a man inured to hardship and suffering. He had 
been exposed in his day to the vicissitudes of per- 
secution and bloodshed. But hard hearted as he 
was, when he found his own dear daughter must 
die, he was terribly agitated. The large, hot tears 
rolled down that bronzed cheek as he turned away 
from his child to weep. What must have been the 
surprise of those soldiers as they saw their leader, 
just returning from a splendid conquest, weeping 
there like a child ? 0, that is a place where the 
strong man always weeps. At the grave of his child 
he must feel, he must mourn ; it is Nature, and 
Nature must have her way. So Jephthah felt. 
This maiden, who had come out to meet him, was 
his only child, and besides her he had neither son 
nor daughter. His wife was gone. His children, 
one by one, had died, until she, the fairest of them 
all, was left alone to cheer him. 

And how many other fathers have bowed and 
wept over the graves of their children, and 
mourned the sad fate which had taken them 
away ! I have seen the strong man, who has 
watched unmoved the flashing lightning, who has 
braved the ocean when lashed to its utmost fury, 



42 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

who has walked the field of danger like a hero 
amid the strife of battle, bent and bowed, broken 
and bleeding at the death bed of his tender child, 
weeping like a woman over passing grief, lament- 
ing as one without hope over the perishing idol 
of his affection. And if to stern, rugged man 
comes the death of a child so terribly, what must 
be the blow to woman -**■ to the mother, whose 
heart is linked by sufferings and watchings, and 
ties too near and sacred to be named on earth, to 
that dying child. One who has been in the deep 
waters of sorrow, and who knows all about it, 
writes tenderly, — 

" No one feels the death of a child as the 
mother feels it. The father cannot realize it thus. 
True, there is a vacancy in his home, and a heavi- 
ness in his heart.- There is a chain of association 
that at set times comes round with its broken 
link ; there are memories of endearment, a keen 
sense of loss, a weeping over crushed hopes, and 
a pain of wounded affection over them all. 

" But the mother feels that one has been taken 
away, who was still closer to her heart. Hers 
has been the office of constant ministration. 
Every graduation of feature developed before her 
eyes, she detected every new gleam of infant in- 
telligence ; she heard the first utterance of every 
stammering word ; she was the refuge of its fears, 



jephthah's daughter. 43 

the supplier of its wants ; and every task of 
affection wove a new link, and made dearer to her 
its object. And when her child dies, a portion 
of her own life, as it were, dies with it. How can 
she give her darling up, with all these loving 
memories, these fond associations ? Timid hands 
that have so often taken hers in trust and love, 
how can she fold them on its sinless breast, and 
surrender them to the cold grasp of death ? The 
feet whose wanderings she had watched so nar- 
rowly, how can she bear to see them straightened 
to go down into the dark valley? The head 
that she has pressed to her lips and bosom, that 
she has watched in peaceful slumber, and in 
burning, heart-saddening sickness, a hair of which 
she could not see harmed — 0, how can she con- 
sign it to the darkness of the grave ? It was a 
gleam of sunshine and a voice of perpetual glad- 
ness in her home ; she had learned from it blessed 
lessons of simplicity, sincerity, purity, and faith ; 
it had unsealed within her a gushing, a never- 
ebbing tide of affection ; when suddenly it was 
taken away, and the home is left dark and silent ; 
and to the vain and heart-rending aspiration, Shall 
that dear child never return ? there breaks in 
response the cold grave silence — Nevermore ! 0, 
nevermore ! The heart is like a forsaken man- 
sion, and those words go echoing through its si- 
lent chambers." 



44 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

The writer is not describing a new or a strange 
thing under the sun. On many a shelf at home 
is the silver plate snatched as a memento from the 
coffin ere it was lowered into the ground ; the 
miniature form taken just before the loved one 
died, or while it was in its little shroud ; full 
many a relic which becomes you well, is worn in 
memory ; and as the stranger wanders in your 
field of graves, he reads, from many a marble 
monument, — 

"Beneath this stone, in sweet repose, 

Is laid a mother's dearest pride ; 
A flower that scarce had waked to life, 

And light, and beauty, ere it died, 
God, in his wisdom, has recalled 

The precious boon his love had given ; 
And though the casket moulders here, 

The gem is sparkling now in heaven." 

We remember one who was called to test the 
sorrows of bereavement, and meet in her own 
dwelling the solemn afflictions of divine Provi- 
dence. A mother was called, like Jephthah, to 
bury her daughter. A few days ago the mother 
saw her ■ die ; she was her only child, and beside 
her she had neither son nor daughter. A little 
while ago the writer was introduced to the family 
of this mourning mother. There were then 
father and mother, surrounded with a family of 
six happy, bright, intelligent children. One by 



jephthah's daughter. 45 

one all these have passed away, the husband and 
the children. The last was a daughter, who out- 
lived the rest. Surely God will spare her to be 
the support of her mother. She lives on, the 
sole earthly hope of that fond parent's heart. 
There is no husband to put his strong arm around 
her when she faints ; there are no youthful sons 
to whisper in her ear, " In a little while, mother, 
we shall be able to support you ; " there are no 
little prattlers to lay their heads on the mother's 
bosom, and say, " Don't cry, ma ! " there are no 
loving ones to hold up her hands and support 
her steps. This daughter alone remains ; she 
is an only child ; all the rest are beneath the 
sod. And even her^ God calls. The delicate 
form, the frail system, cannot stand the assaults 
of this cold northern clime, and she comes down 
day by day to a bed of sickness. 0, who can tell 
the feelings of that mother as she watches the 
fading cheek, the languid expression, the feeble 
tread, and the faltering step — as she realizes the 
deadly stroke which is to take from her her only 
child, and leave her alone in this world. At 
length the parting came. It was sad, but not 
final. The mother had hope. She saw her 
daughter move, not down into the tomb, but up 
into glory. I have read somewhere a mother's 
dream. "I found myself," she said, u iua 



46 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

narrow road, with my little Willie by my side. In 
company with me, a train of mothers was travel- 
ling slowly along, each with her little ones gath- 
ered closely around her. I trembled, for the way 
seemed long, and full of dangers. I looked for- 
ward, where it passed over rugged steeps, and 
through unshaded meadows. I saw deep pitfalls 
stretched across it, screened with waving flowers. 
Here it wound along abrupt precipices, and there 
by the side of dark, still waters. As we journeyed 
on, a murmuring sound fell on my ears, like the 
soft harmony of winds. By degrees, I distin- 
guished the mothers' low-voiced teachings. One, 
as she culled the fragrant flowers, exposed the 
dangers underneath ; another, dipping the clear, 
cool water, pointed out the perils of the slippery 
banks ; and all alike, with murmuring words, 
gazed ever and anon towards heaven. I looked, 
and for an instant, within a cloud, beheld a form 
more glorious than I can describe, and at his feet 
a cross. He was their Guide ; that cross their 
* light in darkness, their shadows in the fervent 
heat. For days we journeyed on. Just before 
me walked an orphan group. I watched, and 
wondered at their safety among the hidden snares, 
till I saw the path of light that streamed before 
their steps. Then I knew they went not unat- 
tended, and remembered that He within the cloud 



jefhthah's daughter. 47 

— their mothers' trust — had said of such, 'In 
heaven, their angels do always behold the face of 
my Father.' But now my Willie faltered, weary 
with his walk. His eyes grew dreamy, and his 
smile faint. With troubled heart I bore him in 
my arms ; and then I heard a voice — ' Suffer 
little children to come unto me.' # But before I 
understood the summons, with mingled agony 
and rapture I gazed on his radiant form, borne 
upwards from my arms, till, through the parted 
clouds, he was lost to my view." So this mother 
was comforted, and her heart relieved. It was 
God, and she did not murmur ; but with her 
heart .upraised, she said, — 

" Nearer, my God, to thee ! 

Nearer to thee ! 
Even though it be a cross 

That raiseth me, 
Still, all my song shall be, 
Nearer, my God, to thee, 

Nearer to thee ! " 

To be nearer to God was to be with the loved ones 
in heaven; and she, with an innumerable com- 
pany of the afflicted, could say, — 

" Though, like the wanderer, 

The sun go down, 
Darkness be over me, 

My rest a stone, 
Yet in my dreams I'd be 
Nearer, my God, to thee, 

Nearer to thee! " 



48 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

We would not lead the thoughts of the afflict- 
ed backward, amid graves and tombstones. We 
would not have them live over again the partings 
and the sobbings which have made the past so 
sorrowful, but with the hand of Christian faith we 
would point forward. Whoever goeth backward, 
saileth on a sea of terrors, while wrecks are all 
around. 

" What saith the past to thee ? Weep ! 
Truth is departed ; 
Beauty hath died like the dream of a sleep ; 

Love is departed ; 

Trifles of sense, the profoundly unreal, 

Scare from our spirits God's holy ideal ; 

So, as a funeral bell, slow and deep, 

So tolls the past to thee. Weep ! " 

But there is a morning that rises over the tomb ; 
there is a morrow for those that weep ; there is a 
gathering of the parted, and to that we would 
point all you that mourn. 

" What doth the future say ? Hope ! 

Turn thy face sunward ; 
Look where light fringes the far rising slope ; 

Day cometh onward. 
Watch ! Though so long be the twilight delaying. 
Let the first sunbeam arise on thee praying ; 
Fear not, for greater is God by thy side 
Than armies of evil against thee allied." 



CHAPTER HI. 



THE GOOD MOTHER. 

REBEKAH. 

God keeps a niche 
In heaven to hold our idols ; and albeit 
He break them to our faces, and deny- 
That our close kisses should impair their white, 
I know we shall behold them raised, complete, 
The dust shook from their beauty, glorified, 
New Memnons in the great God-light. 



And Isaac brought her unto her mother Sarah's tent, and took Re- 
bekah, and she became his wife : and he loved her : and Isaac was 
comforted after his mother's death. Genesis, xxiv. &7. 



FTEE the death of Sarah, his mother, Isaac 
began to feel that lonesomeness which 
comes from an absence of the one whose 
voice has been accustomed to cheer, and 
whose hand has ever been ready, day and night, 
for a kind act. To supply the place of his moth- 
er, Abraham advised his son to take a wife. The 
young man was pleased with the suggestion, as 
most young men are, and he began to look about 

4 (49) 




50 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

him for some suitable companion. But his father 
was unwilling that he should wed any of the 
daughters of the Canaanites. They were idola- 
ters, and profaned the name of the true God. 
He advised the young man to go to Nahor, in 
the country of Mesopotamia, and find some one 
there among the worshippers of God on whom 
to set his affections. In giving this advice, Abra- 
ham exhibited true religious purpose. Some pa- 
rents seem to be willing that their daughters 
should marry anybody that has means to sup- 
port them. The object to be secured is a home 
filled with comforts and luxuries, and many do 
not look at all beyond this. If a man is in 
good business, if his income is large, if he has 
q, well-filled purse, he is deemed an acceptable 
suitor for §, daughter's hand. Often the young 
bride is sacrificed — wedded to a man with whom 
she can have no religious or social affinities — 
merely because the husband is rich. It is said 
that an Athenian, who was hesitating whether to 
give his daughter in marriage to a man of worth, 
with a small fortune, or to a rich man, who had 
no other recommendation, went to consult The- 
mistocles on the subject. " I would bestow my 
daughter," said Themistocles, " upon a man with- 
out money, rather than upon money without a 
man." Many parents take the opposite view, and 



REBEKAH. 51 

are willing to marry a daughter to a fine home, or 
a well-filled purse, or to an easy, comfortable con- 
dition in life, rather than to a man with a heart, 
without these creature comforts. 

There are cases where husbands and wives, 
though of differing religious views, agree, and 
live happily together. It often happens that one 
party or the other is converted to new views or 
new duties after marriage, and by mutual for- 
bearance and kindly sympathy, live as happily as 
if they thought more nearly alike. But while 
this is true of individual cases, it is also true that 
a similarity of religious experience and opinions 
is a great bond between husband and wife. In 
the selection of a companion for life, this should 
not be overlooked ; for where two persons are con- 
scientiously opposed to each other in religious 
views, there is a breach, a chasm, over which, 
ofttimes, affection casts but a slender bridge. 
Abraham was a wise man when he directed his 
son to Nahor for a wife. He knew the influence 
of a religious woman upon the life of his son, and 
was well aware how much her piety would quicken 
his faith while waiting for the promise of God. 

The manner in which men selected wives in 
those days was quite unlike the way pursued now, 
and I have sometimes thought more sensible. 
Our marriages are often mere matters of caprice, 



52 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

founded on no just views of the mutual adapta- 
tion of the parties entering into the contract. 
The partial acquaintance of the ball room, the 
show house, or the street, ripens into a marriage 
which is often productive of unhappiness. The 
way Isaac was betrothed was this : his father 
Abraham called his elder servant, and bade him 
take ten camels, well laden with gifts, and go to 
Nahor, and search out some one who would be a 
suitable person for his son. It might be well for 
young people now, if they would oftener leave 
these matters to the decision of older and more 
experienced persons. This servant went to Na- 
hor, and stood by a well which was a great 
place of resort, and to which females were accus- 
tomed to come for water. As he stood there, he 
prayed that God would send some one to him. 
The crowd came to the well, the aged and the 
young : among the rest, a young maiden came 
tripping along, singing a sweet song, and her 
countenance full of smiles. The eye of the 
trusty servant was at once fixed upon her. She 
was of the proper age for Isaac, and was a person 
of great beauty. As she stood filling her pitcher 
at the well, the servant ran to her, and prayed to 
be allowed to drink. "With the greatest good na- 
ture she allowed him, and when she saw he had 
no pitcher, she drew for his camels also. Her 



REBEKAH. 53 

kindness won the affections of the aged servant, 
and he decided at once to secure her for his lord. 
So when she had done, he made her a return for 
her kindness, and frankly asked her who she was. 
She did not feel insulted by this boldness, nor did 
she turn away with a coquettish reply, but frankly 
answered. The man asked her if there was room 
in her father's house for him, and she said " Yes." 
He followed her home, and her father joyfully 
received him, and took care of his men and his 
cattle. The more he saw of Eebekah, the better 
he liked her, and the more firmly did he resolve 
to take her home with him. So, when the evening 
meal came, and they sat down together, the man 
broached the subject, and told the purpose for 
which he was there. He laid before them the 
honor and riches of his master, the virtues of 
Isaac, his son, and the pleasantness of the coun- 
try in which he lived. He described the way in 
which he had been led to think of Eebekah, and 
made a strong appeal to them in favor of his 
project. In those times, the feelings of the young 
women were hardly consulted at all in a matter 
of this kind, and Eebekah' s father, after hearing 
all that was said, consented to give up his daugh- 
ter, deeming this call from God. His course is 
an example to parents whose children are called 
of God to other fields of usefulness and duty. 



54 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

The parents of some of our female missionaries 
have held on to their children, though the hand 
of the Great Father was beckoning them away. 
Mrs. James, who was drowned in the harbor of 
Hongkong, just as she had come in sight of her 
field of labor, going clown in the arms of her hus- 
band into a watery grave, while deciding the 
struggle in her mind to become a herald of salva- 
tion, says, " Father said, decidedly, he could not 
consent. My mother was agonized at the idea of 
a separation, and she, too, felt that she could not 
let me go, although she was not prepared to say 
I should not go. Sarah [her sister] was almost 
frantic with grief, and you can imagine how I 
must have felt." 

These parents felt as many other parents have 
felt. The call of G-od was heard, but they could 
not obey. They could not endure the idea of 
sending out their darling child to distant China. 
The sacrifice was too great, the treasure of too 
much value, to lay upon the altar of God. They 
were both warm-hearted Christians, but the ser- 
vice of Christ had never called upon ihem for 
such a sacrifice before, and it is not strange that 
they should shrink back. Bethuel, Rachel's fa- 
ther, lived in a time when religious people were ac- 
customed to yield every thing to God, and when 
it seemed to be duty, he gave up his child to the 



REBEKAH. 55 

messenger, and they set forth. What strange emo- 
tions must have filled the mind of Rebekah ! She 
had heard the whole discussion, and chose to go. 
She had her choice. Her father did not use com- 
pulsion ; when his own mind was decided, he said, 
" We will call the maiden, and let her decide ; " and 
she accepted the proposals, and strangely must she 
have felt as she journeyed on to meet her future 
husband. She had never seen him ; there were 
no miniatures in those days ; she could only judge 
from the representations of the servant. What 
was before her she knew not ; yet, with her dam- 
sels she moved on. Isaac came to the well at La- 
hairoi, and when she saw him, with true maiden 
modesty, she covered her face. The young man 
took her by the hand, and led her into the tent of 
his nioftier, and there they were married. What 
the ceremony was we know not ; nor does it mat- 
ter in the least. The place selected for it gives 
us an insight into the heart of that young man ; 
shows us the benevolence of his disposition, and 
the high place his mother had in his memory. 
His mother's tent ! There, with each object re- 
minding him of her, each scene leading his recol- 
lections back to her counsels, with her spirit hov- 
ering near, like a guardian angel, he vowed to 
love and wed Rebekah, and protect her to the end 
of life. He was at this time forty years of age, 



56 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FKIEND. 

and in those times, when life was prolonged to 
centuries, was a young man. 

The first event which occurred to mark the 
married life of Isaac and Rebekah was the birth 
of the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob. The two 
brothers were unlike. Esau was a wild, hunting, 
sporting young man, while Jacob was a home 
body, who loved to cheer his mother in her toils. 
The father loved Esau best, and looked upon Ja- 
cob as effeminate, while the mother's heart clung 
with a mother's fondness to her younger son. In 
those times, the elder son was the heir of peculiar 
privileges. The modern will system was not 
known, but the eldest son inherited all the prop- 
erty, took the entire control, and all the rest were 
subject to him. He had what was called a birth- 
right claim. One clay, however, Esau came from 
the field faint and hungry, and for some red pot- 
tage which his younger brother had, sold out all 
his claim, which completely reversed the order of 
things, and gave Jacob the position which his 
brother had lost. But it was necessary to the 
validity of this contract, that the sanction and 
blessing of the father should fall upon the new 
possessor. This Rebekah knew Isaac would never 
give while reason remained. Esau was his favor- 
ite son, the idol of his affections. It is probable 
that she communicated her views to her husband, 



REBEKAH. 57 

urged him to make Jacob his heir, and met with 
a stern and decided refusal. She then resorted 
to stratagem ; set her wits to work to accomplish 
her project; and in her success we have the darkest 
feature of her life, and the blackest spot upon her 
character. One day, when Isaac was old, he said 
to Esau, " Take your arrows, and go forth and kill 
a beast, and make me some savory food before I 
die, and I will bless thee." The quick ear of the 
mother heard the request, and she took Jacob, her 
favorite, aside, and plotted with him. She pro- 
posed that he personify Esau, and thus by fraud 
obtain the blessing. The young man's mind re- 
coiled from such a deception. His poor old father 
was on the brink of the grave, and he dared not 
deceive him ; but his mother persuaded him, say- 
ing, " Thy curse shall fall on my head if thou art 
detected." Jacob consented after much entreaty. 
His smooth arms were covered with the skin of a 
kid, and with the savory food in his hands, he 
went to the bedside of his father. " I am Esau, 
thy first born ; I have done as thou badest me ; now 
eat what I have brought, and bless me." The 
old man, even in his blindness and forgetfulness, 
thought, as well he might, that the voice he 
heard was that of Jacob. So he called him, and 
felt his arms, and was convinced, though saying 
still, " The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the 



58 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FjRIEND. 

hands are the hands of Esau." But he gave Ja- 
cob the blessing, and secured to him the birth- 
right. Soon Esau came, and said, " Hast thou no 
blessing for me ? " But it was too late ; the 
words had been spoken, and could not be unsaid ; 
and the old man died, feeling in his heart that he 
had been wickedly deceived. The part which 
Rebekah played in this transaction presents 
her in an unfavorable light, and we can hardly 
reconcile her conduct with her usual mild and 
amiable deportment. This dreadful sin stands 
out prominently in her life, casting over the whole 
a sombre shadow, and making it all look gloomy 
and sad. 

And yet the life of Eebekah is an exceed- 
ingly beautiful one. Even this sin lends to 
the rest of it a hue of beauty. It forms a con- 
trast which heightens the general effect, as from 
an eminence three thousand years distant we 
gaze upon it. 

God gave woman to man for a help meet. She 
was not to be a toy, played with a while and 
broken. We have mistaken the position which 
woman should occupy to some extent in our day. 
In the old world she is used as a drudge ; in the 
new world as a toy. Take one single illustra- 
tion : woman is allowed to appear any where, 
where she can minister to the passions of man. 



REBEKAH. 59 

She is admitted to the stage of the theatre ; she is 
allowed to sing, to act, to speak, and perform all 
the nameless frolics of the playhouse. No one 
condemns or considers her out of place. But 
let her rise in a church, and from the pulpit speak 
of Jesus to the lost and dying, and the same per- 
sons that showered flowers upon her in the thea- 
tre curl their lips in scorp. She is applauded in 
the first case because she ministers to their gratifi- 
cation, while she is condemned in the second case 
because she only aims to do them good. Why 
is not a woman as much out of place acting in a 
theatre as haranguing a political mob at a cau- 
cus ? God designed woman to be a helper for man ; 
and one of the most beautiful things we can say 
of Eebekah is, that she fulfilled this design. She 
was a faithful wife and a true mother, ever assist- 
ing her husband in his work. Through a long 
life they lived together, acting in perfect harmony. 
And where this is not the case the marriage rela- 
tion cannot be a happy one, and its existence will 
be a source of life-long regret. There are hun- 
dreds of couples who are miserable and wretched 
because they have formed the contrary habit of 
working against each other. " They recognize 
their marriage," as one remarks, " as the great 
mistake of their lives. The chain is not to them 
a silken one, but a cable of iron, that tightens 



60 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FEIEND. 

around them more and more, crushing out all hope 
and energy, substituting hate for love, and eating 
out with its rust the very inner life of the soul." 
But when the married pair are mutual helpers, 
the relation makes life a smooth road, fringed 
with flowers which bloom even in the depths of 
the winter of adversity and sorrow. I have read 
an illustration to the point. A lady, travelling iii 
Europe, visited with a brother a town in Germany, 
and took lodging with an extraordinary pair, — an 
old man and woman, husband and wife, — who 
lived by themselves, without child or servant, sub- 
sisting on the letting of their parlor and two bed 
rooms. They were tall, thin, and erect, though 
each seventy years of age. The lady, in giving 
an account of these persons, says, " When we 
knocked at the door for admittance, they answered 
it together ; if we rang the bell, the husband and 
wife invariably appeared side by side ; all our re- 
quests and demands were received by both, and 
executed with the utmost nicety and exactness. 
The first night, arriving late by the coach, and 
merely requiring a good fire and our tea, we were 
puzzled -to understand the reason of this double 
attendance." When the hour to retire came, the 
lady was surprised to see both husband and wife 
attending her to her chamber ; and on looking 
with some seriousness towards the husband, the 



REBEKAH. 61 

woman replied, " No offence is meant, madam. 
My husband is stone blind." The lady began to 
sympathize with the wife on the misfortune of 
having a husband quite blind. The man himself 
took up the conversation now, by exclaiming, " It 
is no use for you to talk with my wife, she is en- 
tirely deaf." " I was astonished," says the lady. 
" Here was compensation ! Could a pair be better 
matched ? Man and wife were, indeed, one flesh ; 
for he saw with her eyes, and she heard with his 
ears ! It was beautiful to me ever after to watch 
the old man and woman in their inseparableness. 
Their sympathy with each other was as swift 
as electricity, and made their deprivation as 
nought." 

Something like this is the dependence of every 
married pair one upon the other. There may be 
no deafness, no blindness ; but there will be a de- 
pendence as sure and as complete as that of the 
aged pair in Germany. Isaac and Eebekah living 
long together, are illustrations of this mutual 
dependence. Their lives are beautiful ; and one 
almost wishes, as he reads the Scripture narrative, 
that they might close together — that those who 
were united in life might not in death be divided. 

We have in this account a stern and terrible 
admonition against parental partiality. It is 
sometimes the case that one child has certain 



62 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

peculiarities which endear it to the parents, or 
some one has qualities or defects which cause the 
parents to mourn. Inconsiderate and thoughtless 
parents will often take sides for the interesting 
child against the dull one. In the family of 
Isaac this partiality was carried to an extreme. 
Isaac loved Esau, and petted him ; Rebekah made 
a pet of Jacob. Consequently the two boys hated 
each other, and discord was brought into the fam- 
ily circle. All appearance of partiality should be 
avoided among children. With an even hand the 
parent should balance the scales of justice, remem- 
bering that oftentimes the favorite one becomes 
vicious and depraved, while the dull one grows up 
to honor and virtue. Some one has taken pains 
to collect the facts in relation to eminent men, and 
it has been found that many who have arrived at 
high positions were not favored and flattered in 
youth. We are told that when " Berzelius, the 
eminent Swedish chemist, left school for the uni- 
versity, the words ' Indifferent in behavior and of 
doubtful hope ' were scored against his name ; 
and after he entered the university he narrowly es- 
caped being turned back. On one of his first visits 
to tlie laboratory, when nineteen years old, he was 
taunted with the inquiry whether he understood 
the difference between a laboratory and a kitchen." 
We are told that the father of the great Tsaac Bar- 



EEBEKAH. 63 

row used to say, if it pleased God to take from him 
any of his children, he hoped it might be Isaac, as 
he was the least promising ; that Milton and Swift 
were justly celebrated for stupidity ; that Walter 
Scott had the credit of having the " thickest skull 
in the school," though Dr. Blair told the teacher 
that many bright rays of future glory shone 
through that thick skull ; that " Clavius, the great 
mathematician of his age, was so stupid in his 
boyhood, that the teachers could make nothing of 
him till they tried him in geometry ; " that " Car- 
racci, the celebrated painter, was so inapt in his 
youth that his masters advised him to restrict his 
ambition to the grinding of colors ; " that the 
distinguished " Sir Isaac Newton, in his boyhood, 
was inattentive to his study, and ranked very low 
in school until the age of twelve ; " that " Gold- 
smith was dull in his youth, and Shakspeare, Gib- 
bon, Davy, and Dryden did not appear to have 
exhibited in their childhood even the common 
elements of future success ; " that " when Sam- 
uel Wythe, the Dublin schoolmaster, attempted 
to educate Richard Brinsley Sheridan, he pro- 
nounced the boy an ' incorrigible dunce ; ' the 
mother of Sheridan fully concurred in this ver- 
dict, and declared him the most stupid of her 
sons ; " that " Dr. Scott, the commentator, could 
not compose a theme when twelve years old, and 



6-i THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

even at a later age, Dr. Adam Clarke, after incred- 
ible effort, failed to commit to memory a poem of 
a few stanzas only." An English writer, speak- 
ing of a distinguished female authoress of that 
country, says she " could not read when she was 
seven. Her mother was rather uncomfortable 
about it, but said as every body did learn with 
opportunity, she supposed her child would do so 
at last. By eighteen, the apparently slow genius 
paid the heavy but inevitable debts of her father 
from the profits of her first work, and before 
thirty had published thirty volumes." These 
cases, and a multitude of others which might be 
cited, from the living age of some of our own 
countrymen, should teach parents the folly of any 
partiality which would elevate one favored child 
above another. In the mind of the dull, rough 
boy, there slumbers a spirit which will wake by 
and by, and perhaps astonish the world. Mira- 
beau, when a boy, was of most hideous personal 
appearance, and so awkward and ill mannered, 
that his father hated him, and took every occasion 
to show his dislike. Yet Mirabeau had powers 
of mind which, if rightly directed, would have 
made him a brilliant star in the world. • But the 
false views of his father, who had no idea that his 
son would ever be any thing but a disgrace to 
him, made the young man a fiend incarnate. 



REBEKAH. 65 

Parents often lay the foundation of long and hos- 
tile feuds among their children by a favoritism 
growing out of the preference for one over an- 
other ; and if there is any thing which they 
should check, it is an exhibition of such partiality, 
if it exists in their minds. Isaac and Rebekah, 
each turning from the other, with partiality for a 
favorite child, are a beacon light to warn ns ; and 
the conduct of Rebekah, while her husband was 
lying on his death bed, is a monument which 
stretches its dark shadow down three thousand 
years. And yet we would not harshly condemn 
this fond and erring mother. She lived in 
an age when there were no Bibles printed ; no 
volumes teaching the parent her duty ; no dis- 
courses delivered to those who sustained the en- 
dearing relation ; no manuals of long approval to 
guide ; but an age when all the views of life were 
low, and society itself was a crudity almost cha- 
otic. An Israelitish woman, a writer of tender 
pathos, willing to cast the mantle of her sex over 
this erring sister, thus kindly writes of the wife 
of Isaac : — 

" Rebekah was a partial, but not a weak or un- 
kind mother. She loved Jacob better than his 
brother, but Esau was still her son, her first 
born ; and 0, how painfully must her heart have 
yearned towards him, when she heard his ' great 
5 



66 ^ THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FBIEND. 

and exceeding bitter cry ! ' — ' Hast thou but 
one blessing, my father ? Bless me, even me also, 
my father. And Esau lifted up his voice and- 
wept ! ' — Esau, the rude, the careless hunter, 
who had seemed to care for nought but his own 
pleasures — the chase, the field, the wild! He 
bowed down by his blind father like an infant, 
and wept, beseeching the blessing of which a 
mother's and a brother's subtlety had deprived 
him. Could Rebekah have been a witness, or 
even hearer, of this scene without losing all the 
triumph of success in sympathy with the anguish 
of her first born ? It is impossible to ponder on 
her previous character without being convinced 
of this. It is not from one act, one unresisted 
temptation, that we ought to pronounce judgment 
on a fellow-creature ; yet, from our unhappy 
proneness to condemn, we generally do so." 

Of the death of Rebekah we know but little. 
She lived many years, saw her children advancing 
in life, reaped the bitter fruits of her partiality 
and deception, and dying, was buried in the field 
of Machpelah. The early part of her life darkens 
with the shadow cast upon it by one single act 
near the close. So it often is, in this our life, that 
some man or woman lives long honored and be- 
loved by all, useful and virtuous, but in life's 
decline so far forgets, and falls, as Rebekah did, as 



REBEKAH. 67 

to cast a dark gloom over the whole of life. The 
young may outlive, and overcome ; but an error 
made in life's decline is a dark pall, in which the 
spirit passes away from earth. God help us so 
to live that our last days shall be our best days. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE MARRIED STATE. 

RACHEL. 

But 0, when I gaze on my peaceful cot, 
Where the clematis bowers entwine, 

The land of the stranger tempts me not — 
No, ne'er can thy home be thine ! 

O "Woman, in our hours of ease, 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
And variable as the shade 
By the light quivering aspen made, 
When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
A ministering angel thou ! 

And Jacob served seven years for Rachel ; and they seemed unto him 
but a few days, for the love he had to her. Genesis, xxix. 20. 

/4 l/VERY much of this world's history clusters 
£j J around a very few individuals. Look back 
\y over the ages of the past, and you will be 
surprised, perhaps, to see how much space is 
occupied by a few persons, while the mass are dead 
and forgotten. God has wisely ordered that there 

(08) 



RACHEL. 69 

should be but few men to lead ; and these stand 
out singly in their places, towering above the rest. 
In the city of Rome is a mighty cathedral, the 
wonder of the world. More than three centuries 
were taken to complete it ; forty-three popes lav- 
ished their treasures upon it ; seventy millions of 
dollars have been put into it ; it covers nearly six 
acres of ground, and its annual repairs amount to 
thirty thousand dollars. But how few of all the 
hundreds of thousands who have toiled upon that 
building are remembered ! There are a few names 
inseparably connected with the great structure. 
Bramante, Raphael, and Michael Angelo have left 
their impress upon it, and while it stands their 
names will live. But where are the painters, the 
sculptors, the mechanics, the laborers employed 
by them ? All dead, and their graves forgotten. 
These men gave the direction to the others, and 
their will, combined or individual, moved the wills 
of the millions of hands performing the work. 
So in the great world. There are a few minds 
that move it, and leave their impress upon it 
when they die. Thus we find all we know of 
the history of the world for a long period clus- 
tering around one single family, which contains 
on its record the names of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob. This family is almost the only one of that 
age of which we have any authentic record, and 



70 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

it combines in its circle some of the most illustri- 
ous characters, and exhibits in its records some 
of the noblest deeds ever known. 

In following this record, we come to the vicissi- 
tudes of Jacob, the younger son of Isaac and 
Hebekah. After he had so cruelly deceived his 
father, the impossibility of living in the same 
family with Esau became apparent. Even Isaac, 
who had somewhat recovered from his sickness, 
was willing that his children should leave him. 
It is likely that home was rendered wretched by 
the constant feuds of the two brothers; Jacob 
exulting over Esau, and Esau blaming and re- 
proaching Jacob. The strife was so bitter, that 
Esau determined to kill his brother ; and Rebe- 
kali, fearing such violence, sent the younger son 
away, saying, " Esau will kill you if you stay here ; 
he is so angry, that in some moment of hate and 
rage, he will take your life ; therefore go to my 
brother Laban, and stay until the anger of thy 
brother is appeased." Isaac also urged his son to 
depart. He had a different motive from that 
which actuated his wife. He knew that through 
Jacob, who had fraudulently received his blessing, 
deliverance was to come to the world, and he 
wished him to wed a religious wife, and supposed 
he would find such a one at Padan Aram. So 
Jacob started, and pursued his way, having, as he 



RACHEL. 71 

slept one night, the miraculous dream in which he 
saw the ladder placed on the earth, and reaching 
to heaven, while up and down were angel forms 
seen by the dreamer's eye. The traveller arrived 
safely in Padan Aram, where he was destined to 
meet with a variety of adventures. His first in- 
terview with Eachel is thus described by the pen 
of Moses, who, after referring to certain people 
of the country, who were tending their flocks, 
speaks of Jacob as addressing them thus : — 

" My brethren, whence be ye ? And they said, 
Of Haran are we. And he said unto them, Know 
ye Laban, the son of Nahor ? And they said, We 
know him. And he said unto them, Is he well ? 
And they said, He is well ; and behold Rachel, his 
daughter, cometh with the sheep. And while he 
yet spake with them, Rachel came with her fa- 
ther's sheep, for she kept them. And it came to 
pass, when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of 
Laban, his mother's brother, and the sheep of 
Laban, his mother's brother, that Jacob went near, 
and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and 
watered the sheep ; and Jacob kissed Rachel, and 
lifted up his voice and wept ; and Jacob told Ra- 
chel that he was her father's brother, and that he 
was Rebekah's son. And she ran and told her 
father." 

To this interview followed a long and curious 



72 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FEIEND. 

history. When Laban heard that Jacob had come, 
he ran and welcomed him, and took him to his 
own home. When he had been there about a 
month, Laban said to him one day, " I do not wish 
thee to work for me for nought. What shall thy 
wages be ? " Now Laban, as the account says, 
had two daughters, Leah and Rachel. Already 
an attachment had sprung up between Jacob and 
the latter of these daughters, and having no gift 
to bestow on Laban for her, he said, frankly, " I 
will serve thee seven years for Rachel." To this 
Laban consented, and a contract was entered into 
accordingly. At this time, Jacob was seventy- 
seven years old, and Rachel was in extreme youth. 
The wisdom of Jacob in waiting so long before 
forming a matrimonial connection may be ques- 
tioned ; but no one will dispute that he was wiser 
than many boys and girls now, who, before their 
physical constitutions are developed, before they 
have any settled and well-defined ideas of life, 
before they have any business which will tolerably 
support themselves, rush into an alliance which 
involves them in pecuniary liabilities, that keep 
them poor as long as they live. This, however, 
must be said for Jacob, that, comparing the whole 
length of his life with ours, he was not older 
when married than most of us are. The lover 
worked out his seven years, living all that time in 



RACHEL. 73 

the same family with Rachel. But when the 
seven years were ended, Laban took Leah, and by 
deceit induced Jacob to wed her ; and when the 
plot had succeeded, laughed at him, and told him 
he must serve him seven years more if he wanted 
Rachel, and he was obliged to submit. Some 
have said this served Jacob right, for his deception 
towards his father, and for which Laban had well 
repaid him. The strength p of Jacob's affection for 
Rachel cannot be questioned. Leah he seems 
never to have loved ; but through all the changes 
of fourteen years, his heart clung to her younger 
sister — to Rachel, whom he saw first and loved 
most. " Something more," remarks an eloquent 
female writer, " than Rachel's beauty, marvellous 
as that was, must have so retained Jacob's love 
for her in those seven years of domestic inter- 
course, as to make the time appear but a few days. 
Beauty may attract and win, if the time of court- 
ship be too brief to require no other charm ; but 
it is not sufficient, of itself, to retain affection. 
Gift from God as it is, how may it be abused, and 
how may it be wasted, in caring only for the lovely 
shape without, and leaving the. rich, invisible gems 
within uncared for and unused ! " " And if there 
be one," remarks the same writer, " of beauty 
exceeding as that of Rachel, who holdeth in her 
possession this rich gift of God, let her remember 



74 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

that he will demand of her how she hath used it ; 
that its abuse, its pretended neglect, yet in reality 
proud value, will pass not unnoticed by its benefi- 
cent Giver. It has been granted for some end ; 
for if to look on a beautiful flower will excite 
emotions of admiration and love, and conse- 
quently enjoyment, how much more deeply would 
such feelings be called forth by a beautiful face, 
could we but behold it as the hands of God had 
formed it, unshaded by the impress of those emo- 
tions of pride, contempt, or self-sufficiency, or that 
utter void of intellect, which are but too often its 
concomitants, from the mistaken notion that out- 
ward beauty is omnipotent, and needs no help 
within ! " 

At the end of the second term of seven years, 
Jacob took his wife Rachel, Laban requiring no 
further service of him. He had now made the 
common mistake, and entered into contract with 
a plurality of wives. Henceforth his home was a 
scene of contention and recrimination, the two 
sisters, who never had one word of variance be- 
fore, now being unable to agree. Still, Jacob 
continued to live wifh Laban until a large family 
of children had gathered around him. Troubles 
between himself and his father-in-law arising, he 
took his flocks and herds, and departed towards 
Mount Gilead. Laban, finding his retreat, pur- 



RACHEL. 75 

sued him, and overtaking him, forced him to a 
compromise, which he willingly made. As they 
left the house of Laban, Rachel stole several im- 
ages of gold, probably the gods which had been 
worshipped, and which were now used as orna- 
ments. To keep these images, she was obliged to 
use deceit, thus coupling two enormous sins, for 
the sake of these miserable images, which were 
probably worth but little to her. How her husband 
felt when he discovered her guilt, the account 
does not tell us ; but we have every evidence 
to believe that her conduct filled him with sorrow. 
Every wife is bound so to live that she bring no 
disgrace upon her husband. By a common law 
of life, a man may do wrong, and no disgrace 
attach itself to his family. The feeling for them 
is one of pity and commiseration. But when a 
wife is found guilty of wrong, the disgrace does 
attach itself, however unjustly, to her partner ; 
and under the existence of this state of society, 
woman is bound to double circumspection. Not 
only her own happiness, but the honor of her hus- 
band and the welfare of her children, are bound 
up in her deportment. 

We hear little more of Rachel, after Jacob's 
return from the country of Laban, until we are 
called to mourn over her death. Joseph was born 
while she was at home, in the house of Laban ; in 



76 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

the hour that gave birth to Benjamin, the spirit 
of the mother passed from earth. Among the 
noticeable things connected with the life of Ra- 
chel is the trial which Jacob made of her capabil- 
ities before he married her. Fourteen long years 
were spent in the same family with her. He 
knew well her habits, her industry, her temper 
and disposition. Every point of her character 
was tried ; every gauge of her soul was taken ; 
and long before he secured her hand, he knew her 
worth and excellence. How differently is this now 
conducted ! The young man becomes acquainted 
with the lady at some festival or party, and weds 
her without any knowledge of her abilities or her 
temperament. The result is, that a few months 
of married life cause the parties better to under- 
stand each other, and then there is found to be a 
total want of fitness and appropriateness in the 
engagement. Unless the parties exercise the ut- 
most forbearance, misery and wretchedness is the 
result. 

It is very true, as some one justly remarks, 
" marriage should never be the result of fancy. 
The ball room and the evening party rarely de- 
velop real character. Under the exhilarating 
influence of the dance, the glare of lights, the 
merry quib and joke, the dissolute young man 
may appear amiable, and the slatternly scold 



RACHEL. 77 

lovable. Matches made at such places, or under 
similar circumstances, are not of the class that 
originate in heaven. They more generally are 
conceived in the opposite place, and bring forth 
only iniquity. The true way to learn each other 
is to do it at home — in the parlor, in the kitchen, 
and on occasions that test the temper. We see 
the result of these unions in the almost daily 
divorces taking place, in the running away of 
husbands, leaving their wives and children to 
starve, and in the elopement of wives. Not only 
this, but we witness it in broken-spirited men, 
made old in the prime of life, struggling on for 
mere food, and clothing, and shelter, and in 
women, cross, dirty, sluttish, and wrinkled." 

It is not so necessary that the parties be similar 
in disposition, but that they should thoroughly 
know each other, before the words are spoken 
which death alone can undo. My mind rests 
now upon a man of education and influence, who 
had a high standing in society. He was the joy 
and pride of the circle in which he moved, and 
for a long time remained in an unmarried state. 
At length he became intensely interested in a se- 
ries of articles which were issuing from the pub- 
lic press from an anonymous female writer. The 
gentleman, enamoured with the articles, all of 
which seemed to breathe a tender and heavenly 



78 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

spirit, determined to find out the authoress, and 
at length was successful. He at once wrote to 
the lady, made proposals of marriage, and they 
were in a short time united. The result was, 
from that hour the kind-hearted, affable gentle- 
man lost his cheerfulness, and died at length, 
feeling that in one of life's greatest experiments 
he had made a failure. Disappointed in her 
whom he had chosen, and of whom he had formed 
such exalted conceptions, the pressure of his 
chagrin upon his sensitive organism was so great, 
that the silver cord was loosed, and the golden 
bowl was broken at the fountain. If a man is 
about to purchase a watch for which he is obliged 
to pay one hundred dollars, he tries it — carries it 
in his pocket, and tests its accurateness in telling 
time. And shall a man enter into a relation 
which is the most sacred, intimate, and enduring 
of life, with less consideration than he gives to 
the purchase of a watch ? It is painful to see a 
want of symmetry in this matter ; for symmetry is 
a law of heaven, and beautifully has God ordained 
that certain dispositions should come together, 
and that certain traits of character should balance 
and control other traits. " Let every one take 
his mate, or none," says one writer. " Let not 
the brave eagle pair with the stupid owl, nor the 
gentle dove with the carrion crow. Like should 



RACHEL. 79 

have like. It is a glorious sight to see two old 
people, who have weathered the storms, and 
basked in the sunshine, of life together, go hand 
in hand, loving and truthfully, down the gentle 
declivity of time, with no angers, nor jealousies, 
nor hatreds garnered up against each other, and 
looking with hope and joy to the everlasting youth 
of heaven, where they two shall be one forever. 
That is true marriage — for it is the marriage of 
spirit with spirit. Their love is woven into a 
woof of gold, that neither time, nor death, nor 
eternity can sever." 

Again: Kachel was the mother of two fine 
sons. We sometimes say that the child who has 
a good mother is fortunate. Very true. A good 
mother is a blessing which tongue has never yet 
described. Some of the noblest ideas, some of 
the sublimest conceptions, some of the purest 
principles ever known on earth have been taught 
by maternal love. The bliss of years has been 
the result of a mother's training, and the germs 
of the loftiest deeds were 

"Lodged by a tender mother's care 

In the young folds of thought and sense ; 
Like fire in flint they slumbered there, 

Till gems had struck them bright from thence." 

But it is also true that a mother is fortunate 
who has a good son. Who can describe the an- 



80 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

guish of Eve, as she saw the blood of Abel staining 
the ground ? What anguish was on her counte- 
nance as she fell on the body of her younger and 
best-loved son ! Could a mother's feelings have 
been put to a more severe test ? Ah, yes ; when 
they told her that the murderer was not a fero- 
cious beast, but Cain, her cup ran over. What 
were David's feelings over Absalom ! What days 
and nights of anguish must that father have had 
over the rebellious, wayward son ? Absalom might 
have died a dozen times, and David would not 
have felt it so keenly as when he knew that Absa- 
lom was in arms against him. Now, in this 
respect Rachel was peculiarly fortunate. Her 
two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, were marked for 
the propriety of their conduct, and their devotion 
to her. On all occasions they regarded the feel- 
ings and obeyed the commands of their mother. 
If I can judge, there is in our times a sad 
want of respect among young men for their 
parents. It is painful, sometimes, to see how 
old age is treated by wild and reckless youth ; 
and fortunate is the mother whose son imitates 
the conduct of Him who in dying even said to 
a loved disciple, " Behold thy mother." How 
differently Christ treated his mother from the 
coarse and barbarous way in which some men 
treat their parents ! How kind the title he ap- 



RACHEL. 81 

plies to her, and how gentle the words in which 
he addresses her. Some writer speaks of hearing 
a young man apply to his mother the coarse 
epithet " old woman," and very justly adds, 
" It sunk into my heart, and as I passed on, I 
thought how unfeeling was such language. Once 
that youth was a babe in his mother's arms. 
Then, whose voice beguiled him to slumber by 
lullabies as sweet as love could make them? 
Whose hand passed softly over his heated brow 
when fever flushed his features ? Who wet the 
parched lips, and folded him close to her beating 
heart ? Who, in after years, taught him to 
kneel by her side, and say, ' Our Father, who 
art in heaven ' ? Who led him out at eventide 
to gaze on the stars, and told him the simple story 
of the Saviour, his birth, his sufferings, his death 
and resurrection, and tried to instil into his mind 
the truth that he had gone before to prepare man- 
sions for those who loved him, far beyond those 
twinkling orbs of light? Who was the first to 
warn if danger threatened, to encourage if diffi- 
culties presented themselves, to cheer if a weight 
pressed down the spirit ? Who taught him to 
come to her with all his childish griefs, assuring 
him of her sympathy ? Who was it, when sick- 
ness was on him, that shaded the curtains so no 
sunbeams could touch that restless head and ach- 
6 



82 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

ing brow ? Who smoothed down the coverlet, 
and allowed no heavy tread to disturb his repose ? 
Who watched him through the long, long night, 
when life seemed suspended on a single strand, 
and whose voice was lifted up to the all-wise Dis- 
poser, in the prayer ' If it be possible, let this cup 
pass from me ' ? 

" When the bloom of health had again mantled 
the cheek of the boy, who whispered hopefully of 
the glad future yet to appear ? Was it the old 
woman? Is this the gratitude of one whose 
every thought should be to scatter roses down 
her declining path ? 

" I looked forward a few years, and the rude, 
disrespectful boy had become a coarse and brutal 
man. Then I heard him use to his mother words 
sharper than a sword, and that descended into her 
soul. I marked the cold look, the scornful re- 
pulse, the loathing expressions, and I felt that her 
cup of anguish was running over. 

" Yet a little farther, and her hairs were white, 
but more with sorrow than with age, and soon 
she sank into the grave with a broken heart." 

The children of Eachel were models in this 
important respect, and she was a favored woman 
in this particular. 

In reading the history of Rachel we are also 
struck with the fact that female beauty is no 



RACHEL. 83 

criterion of real character. Leah was a plain 
woman. She had few of the graces and adorn- 
ments of personal appearance. Though not ug- 
ly, she was not beautiful. This we may judge 
from the Scripture record : " Leah was ten- 
der-eyed, [i. e., quiet and unassuming in her 
appearance,] but Rachel was beautiful and well 
favored." But Leah was evidently the more pious, 
and better dispositioned of the two. She appears 
to us a modest, uncomplaining woman, who strove 
to do her duty to her husband and children. 
She did not manifest the arrogant disposition of 
Hagar towards Sarah, but kindly strove to win 
the heart of her sister ; and with her sorrows, 
Rachel, more beautiful, was more petulant ; and 
had Leah been like her, it might have been im- 
possible for Jacob to have retained them both. 
But with Leah there was no murmuring, no com- 
plaining whatever. She loved her sister, though 
that sister was her rival, and sometimes spoke 
harshly to her. The ornaments she wore were 
the meek and quiet adornments of a spirit which 
had no sudden bursts of passion, and over which 
no evil genius presided. Some one beautifully 
says of her, "Thrown back upon herself, from 
wanting the attractions of beauty and vivacity 
granted to her younger sister, Leah's graces ex- 
panded inwardly and spiritually ; her yearning 



84 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

affections always strongest from never finding vent 
by being called for and appreciated by man. Ke- 
joicingly and gratefully acknowledging and be- 
lieving the blessed religion which told her of an 
unchanging Friend and most tender, loving 
Father, she found in such belief enough, and 
could realize content in the midst of trial, happi- 
ness in the midst of grief. Such a character as 
Leah's, from the time she is revealed to us, so 
perfectly free from all wrong feelings in a situa- 
tion so likely to excite them, is not natural to 
woman; and we may, therefore, infer that her 
youth had had its trials, which the grace of God 
had blessed, in making her rise from them the 
gentle, enduring, lovable being which his word 
reveals." 

The same general fact is true of the men and 
women of our times. The grace and beauty of 
the person are no criterion of character, and many 
a one whose smile lights up the festive scene, and 
whose beauty is reflected upon all around, has, 
working beneath, the most hideous passions and 
the most wicked purposes. We too often mis- 
judge others in this respect. We see a lovely 
young person, whom God has made beautiful, 
whose countenance is pleasant to look upon, 
whose eye flashes with enthusiasm, whose form is 
erect and queenly, and who is admired by all. 



RACHEL. 85 

We imagine that such a one must be lovely in 
spirit as well as person. But it is not always so. 
The plain, homely face often accompanies a heart 
as pure as piety itself, while the smiling face of 
beauty hides the most extreme mental and spir- 
itual deformity. Beauty is an ornament and a 
blessing ; but one can do without it far better than 
without a meek and beautiful spirit. The person 
only appears to the gaze of the world ; but the 
angels behold the spirit, and when that is beauti- 
ful, they admire and love it. The body may be 
ornamented until it shines in purple and gold ; 
the cheeks may be painted until they blush like 
the vermilion flowers ; the hair may be wrought 
and adjusted like that of Delilah ; and, after all, 
these things do not compensate for intelligence 
and piety. The dew drop will wrinkle the cheek 
of beauty ; the frost will wither the form of 
strength ; time will tarnish the jewels, and the sun 
will fade the purple robe ; but no storm, no age, no 
decay, will ever offset the beauty of the soul, 
which has an immortality of its own, and which 
is not dependent on any outward adornments. 

" It is the mind that makes the body rich ; 
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, 
So honor peereth in the meanest habit ; 
What ! is the jay more precious than the lark, 
Because his feathers are more beautiful ? 
And is the adder better than the eel, 
Because his painted skin contents the eye ? " 



86 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

In Sarah, Bebekah, and Eachel we have the 
mothers of the Jewish nation — a nation which 
has shone with more glory, which has occupied a 
larger space in history, which has received from 
God more honor and blessing, than any other. 
We trace the world's history from Eve, the mother 
of us all, to Sarah, the wife of Abraham ; from 
Sarah down through the patriarchal times, to 
David's house, through which the royal succes- 
sion runs, to Mary, the mother of our Lord. The 
genealogy of other families is lost ; but this, pre- 
served amid the changes and commotions of cen- 
turies, has been sacredly guarded by God himself. 
Those three mothers, living away back in time, 
taught by the great voice of truth, looked down 
with holy anticipations to their royal descendant, 
who should combine in himself the glories of 
God with the infirmity of men. They did not 
live to see him, but he came. They did not find 
for him a royal title, but men and angels crowned 
him Lord. He was an heir, yet he was greater 
than Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. He had not 
where to lay his head ; poverty was a part of his 
heritage below, yet Abraham and his sons, in all 
their patriarchal wealth, were not so rich as he. 
He was the lineal descendant of Sarah, but he 
lived long before Abraham found her in the city 
of Uz. He was alike David's son and David's 



RACHEL. 87 

Lord, and when he came, a whole legion of sainted 
ones of that royal line followed him on unseen 
wings, and made the plains of Bethlehem echo 
with the shout, " Glory to God in the highest, 
peace on earth, and good will to men." 



CHAPTER V. 

MOTHER-IN-LAW — DAUGHTER-IN-LAW. 

NAOMI AND RUTH. 

We grew together in wind and rain ; 
We shared the pleasures and shared the pain ; 
I would have died for her, and she, 
I knew, would have done the same for me — 
Mother and I ! 



And he said, Who art thou ? And she answered, I am Ruth, thine 
handmaid. Ruth, iii. 9. 



y/T is curious to observe how customs and 
habits change with the flight of time. We 
find the whole order of society different in 
the days of Ruth from that we saw in the 
times of Sarah and Rebekah. When we descend 
a little farther, we shall discover still other phases 
of domestic and religious life, differing still from 
that which existed in the days of Ruth. Yet each 
arrangement had its merits, and in shifting the cur- 
tain, we have not always made an improvement. 
Our subject now is, " The Life and Times of 

(88) 




NAOMI AND RUTHc 89 

Ruth," in which we shall have an occasion to 
glance at some singular social customs, and to 
contemplate a character intensely beautiful and 
majestically simple. There lived, it seems, in the 
town of Bethlehem, an old man named Elim- 
elech. He had a wife, whose name was Naomi, 
and two sons, Mahlon and Chilon. A famine 
spread over the promised land, and the Jewish 
nation was perishing for bread. Unable to find 
the means of subsistence in his own country, this 
old man took his wife and two sons, and moved 
across the line into Moab. The journey was not 
a long nor a hard one. He had no goods to 
transport, no heavy encumbrances to retard his 
progress, and he was soon settled in a new coun- 
try, with new neighbors. The two sons married 
in Moab, and from all we can learn, made excel- 
lent choice. They lived very happily with their 
wives, and at length followed their father, who 
did not live long after he became a dweller in 
Moab, to the grave. As was natural, the heart 
of Naomi yearned for her old home. The hus- 
band and sons who had accompanied her to Moab 
were dead, and though all were kind to her, she 
felt that she was among strangers, and" her heart 
longed to wander over the fields of Bethlehem, 
and listen to the plaintive songs of Judah's daugh- 
ters. She visited the grave of her husband and 



90 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

children for tlie last time, and turned away for- 
ever from the spot where rested in undreaming 
sleep those precious forms. Her daughters-in-law 
went with her, comforting her heart, and holding 
up her steps. It was an affecting sight, to see that 
mother, with two young and beautiful women 
leading her back to the land of her nativity and 
the city of her fathers. As they went on, we may 
imagine that the people of Moab came out and 
blessed them; that the grave and the gay had 
some words of cheer for that afflicted and anxious 
group. But as they went on, Naomi, who seems 
to have been gifted with a beautiful habit of for- 
getting her own good in the welfare of others, 
reflected upon the injustice of taking these two 
young women from their own land and friends, 
and drawing them to a strange people, having 
strange customs and strange habits. So she ad- 
vised them to return. " I have no sons for you 
to marry," she said ; "I have no home to which I 
can take you ; I have no fortune to bestow upon 
you. Go back, therefore, and find you homes and 
husbands among the people of Moab." 

It cannot be supposed that Naomi did not wish 
these daughters to go with her ; had they both 
refused to return to Moab, it would have given 
her inexpressible joy. But she consulted their 
pleasure, and not her own, and she was willing to 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 91 

be a childless widow all her days rather than do 
what would be for the injury of her children. 
The conduct of the two young ladies gives us an 
insight into their characters. It is likely that 
they loved Naomi ardently. The devotion of 
Orpah was as pure as that of Ruth, and as great. 
But the exhibitions of natural character on the 
part of these two persons were strikingly varied. 
Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, and went back to 
Moab. The reasoning of Naomi struck her forci- 
bly, and she bade the aged woman " Good by," 
and sought a home in her own land, among her own 
people. What became of her the sacred record 
does not tell us. Whether she was again mar- 
ried ; whether she relapsed into idolatry ; whether 
she prospered after the separation, we know not. 
While the whole course of Ruth is marked out 
before us, the life of Orpah relapses into oblivion. 
The Scripture record concerning the other sister 
is, " But Rath clave unto her." As I said, we 
do not know that the love of Ruth was any 
greater towards Naomi than that of Orpah, but 
her character was more perfectly developed. She 
had stronger principle, and was better able to sink 
herself in her benevolent sympathies for others. 
To all Naomi's gentle expostulations she only 
said, " Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return 
from following after thee ; for whither thou goest 



92 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge ; 
thy people shall be my people, and thy God my 
God ; where thou diest will I die, and there will 
I be buried." 

The after history of Ruth is quite romantic, 
and those who love fiction will find fiction itself 
surpassed in this truthful reality. The mother 
and daughter went on to Bethlehem ; and as they 
drew near, the whole city came out to welcome 
them, with surprise. "Is this Naomi?" they 
said, as they saw her and her daughter. She re- 
plied, " Call me not Naomi. That signifies ful- 
ness — completeness. But call me Mara, for the 
hand of the Lord has been upon me ; I went out 
full, and have returned empty." The conduct of 
the people of Bethlehem shows us the sacred esti- 
mation in which Naomi was held. Had she been 
a woman who had no heart to sympathize in the 
woes of others, no hand to relieve the distressed, 
no voice to cheer the fallen, or warn the erring, 
she would not have been thus received. We have 
also a beautiful picture of the primitive order of 
society, in contrast with the cold, unfeeling heart- 
lessness of the present age, when the soul-ab- 
sorbing principle seems to be, not to make others 
happy, but to get, grasp, and keep. " Can we not 
fancy," asks one, " the whole city flocking to look 
upon the travellers, to discover if indeed the ru- 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 93 

mor of Naomi's return could, be correct, and anx- 
ious, if it were, to give her kindly welcome ? 
struck by her look of years and sorrow, remem- 
bering her only as the fair and pleasant-looking 
wife of Elimelech, then in her freshest prime, 
marvelling one to another, ' Can this indeed be Na- 
omi ? ' It is a complete picture of that primitive 
union of family and tribe peculiar to early Juda- 
ism. Men were not then so engrossed with self 
as to feel no sympathy, no interest, out of their 
own confined circle. They could spare both time 
and feeling to 'be moved' at the return of a 
countrywoman who had been absent so long, and 
to grieve with her at those heavy afflictions which 
caused her to reply to their eager greetings, ' Call 
me not Naomi ; call me Mara, for the Almighty 
hath dealt very bitterly with me.' " 

In our days of progress, when machinery has 
enabled us to grasp the world in our arms, when 
railroads and steamships have made the world one 
great city, the little charities of life, the kindly 
feelings of home, are often forgotten, and the 
true affections of home life are undeveloped ; and 
sometimes we almost wish all these improvements 
swallowed up in the Dead Sea, that we may have 
men's hearts around us, instead of one everlasting, 
ceaseless rattle of machines. 

The two travellers came to Bethlehem in the 



94 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FEIEND. 

time of the barley harvest, about the sixteenth of 
April, and fouucl for themselves a humble resi- 
dence. It was common in those times for poor 
people, who had no fields in which to plant grain, 
to go in harvest time into the fields of their richer 
neighbors, and follow the reapers, who left here 
and there some ears of grain for them. To this 
occupation Euth devoted herself, and under the 
direction of Naomi, went to gather corn in the 
fields of Boaz, a rich, but distant relative of her 
husband. The first day, Boaz saw her, and was 
so impressed with her appearance that he inquired 
her out. She was so modest and diligent, so 
different from the common field beggars who 
followed his reapers, that he was touched and 
moved by her. He went to her, and spoke en- 
couragingly with her ; told her he had heard 
of her kindness to her mother-in-law ; and made 
her eat and drink with his own maidens, that 
were binding the sheaves. She realized how great 
was the condescension of Boaz. " Why have I 
found grace in thy eyes," she said, " that thou 
shouldst take this knowledge of me, seeing I am 
a stranger ? " And how must her heart have 
throbbed at Boaz's rejoinder, " It hath been fully 
showed me all that thou hast done unto thy moth- 
er-in-law since the death of thine husband ; how 
thou hast left father and mother, and the land of 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 95 

thy nativity, and art come unto a people which 
thou knewest not heretofore. The Lord recom- 
pense thy work, and a full reward be given thee 
of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings 
thou art come to trust." 

When Ruth went home at night, she told Nao- 
mi whom she had met, how she had been received, 
and how kindly Boaz had spoken to her. Naomi 
received this intelligence with grateful surprise, 
and she remembered that Boaz was a kinsman, 
and that, according to the customs of the times, 
Ruth could claim his hand in matrimony, under 
an existing Jewish law, which required a kinsman 
to take the widow and provide for her. The 
method of bringing this about was peculiar, and 
might shock our views of propriety, but was en- 
tirely in accordance with the spirit 'of the times 
in which Ruth lived. Being a custom, it was not 
considered a breach of decorum, as it properly 
would be in our day. Acting under the wise di- 
rection of Naomi, Ruth went one night when the 
heart of Boaz was merry with wine, and watching 
until he was asleep, uncovered his feet, and laid 
herself down against them. The beds of the an- 
cients were different from ours, and we can hardly 
excuse Ruth for what appears to us an uncivil 
act ; but we must attribute to the customs of the 
age what offends our views of propriety. The bed 



96 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

on which Boaz threw himself was a mere couch, 
probably. A traveller in Palestine thus describes 
an Eastern bed on which he slept in the convent 
of San Saba, so romantically situated on the 
banks of the Brook Kedron, as follows : — 

" My bed consisted merely of a bolster and a 
blanket spread on the floor. The latter could be 
drawn partially over the body if any one wished, 
though the expectation seemed to be that w^e 
should sleep in our ordinary dress, without any 
additional covering. Such a bed is obviously a 
portable one ; it is easy to take it up, fold it to- 
gether, and carry it from place to place, as con- 
venience may require. The allusions in the Bible 
show that the couches or beds in use among the 
Jews were of different kinds ; that they were more 
or less simple, more or less expensive, according 
to the rank or circumstances of different persons. 
Anciently, however, as at the present time in the 
East, the common people slept on a light mattress 
or blanket, with a pillow, perhaps, but without 
any other appendage." 

At midnight, Boaz awoke, and finding a person 
on his bed, cried, wildly, " Who art thou ? " 
Ruth told him all, and Boaz consented to take 
her for his wife, provided a kinsman who had a 
stronger claim, and a nearer relationship, did not 
do the same thing. There is a custom yet com- 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 97 

mon among the Jews, founded on Deut. 25 : 5-10, 
— when a man dies, his near kinsman is required 
to marry her, as already stated, or give her her 
freedom, or, as it is called, chalitzah. This pro- 
cess is somewhat singular, and is conducted on 
this wise, as described by a writer on Jewish an- 
tiquities. " The parties having informed the 
proper persons and authorities, it is announced in 
the synagogue that a chalitzah (or taking off of 
the shoe) is to take place the following morning. 
After the morning service, according to announce- 
ment, three rabbis, the required witnesses, and 
the parties meet ; after hearing their statement, 
the chief rabbi questions the young man, and 
when he finds him determined not to marry his 
brother's widow, he calls for the shoe. This shoe 
is of peculiar make, and used for this purpose 
only. It is made of black cloth list, of pointed 
form, with two long laces attached thereto, and is 
always kept in the synagogue. When brought 
forward, the rabbi commands the man to put it 
on, after doing which, he twists and ties the laces 
about his legs. The woman is then led by the 
rabbi to the man, and made to repeat the follow- 
ing in Hebrew : ' My husband's brother refuse th 
to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel ; he 
will not perform the duty of my husband's broth- 
er.' In answer to this, he replies, 4 1 like not 
7 



98 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

to take her.' The woman then undoes the knot, 
which is a troublesome office, as she must do it 
with the right hand only; takes off the shoe, 
casts it upon the ground, and spits upon or before 
the man, repeating after the rabbi, * So shall it 
be done unto that man that will not build up his 
brother's house ; and his name shall be called in 
Israel, " the house of him that hath his shoe 
loosed." ' All present respond, ' His shoe is 
loosed ! his shoe is loosed ! his shoe is loosed ! ' 
After this, the rabbi declares the woman free to 
marry whomsoever she chooses, and the secretary 
of the synagogue gives her a writing to this effect. 
So the ceremony ends." 

This, or a very similar process, Ruth went 
through, and became cleared of all legal obstruc- 
tions, and was united with Boaz in marriage. 
The fruit of this marriage was the birth of Obed, 
the father of Jesse, the father of the pious Psalm- 
ist. Of the declining days of Ruth we know but 
little, but we have every reason to believe that she 
descended gently and quietly into the vale of years, 
loved by her husband, esteemed by her kindred, 
venerated by her children, and blessed of God. 
Her gentle, docile obedience must have won the 
love of her husband ; her many virtues must have 
commanded the esteem of friends ; her consist- 
ency and uprightness must have secured the 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 99 

veneration of her children ; and her piety and 
faith must have drawn down the blessing of Him 
who loves the humble and contrite heart. But 
let us now attend to the practical lessons which 
this beautiful and romantic narrative teaches. 
And among these is, — 

1. The tendency of affliction to develop beauti- 
ful traits of character. Some of the most noble 
characters have been brought to our view by afflic- 
tions. Who would have remembered Mrs. Jud- 
son with half the interest which attaches itself to 
her name, if she had not been placed In awful 
perils ? When her husband was confined in the 
dark dungeon at Ongpenla, then her heroic spirit 
contrived means to communicate with him, and 
her great soul rose up to the full measure of its 
sublime mission. But for that fearful wave of 
persecution which swept over the missionary fam- 
ily, the beautiful traits of her character might 
never have been developed. And so has it been 
in all time. The flames of persecution have 
lighted up the sublimest virtues ; the deep, dash- 
ing waters of sorrow have washed out those em- 
bedded qualities ; and the tempests have swept 
them into notice. Had Ruth and Naomi never 
been afflicted, had their homes never been broken 
up by the hand of death, we never should have 
heard of them. Incased in prosperity, they would 



100 



have lived and died, and none would have com- 
mented upon their virtues, nor mentioned them 
as examples of constancy and integrity. Was it 
not so with John ? In his exile, his character was 
more truthfully displayed than when the popular 
preacher in Ephesus. Was it not so with Bun- 
yan? No one would have heard of him, had he 
not been shut up in Bedford jail. And are there 
not thousands who are brought out and developed 
by the trials of life ? You have seen the seed 
cast into the earth ; you have also seen it bring 
forth a harvest. The rain, the wind, the dark 
night, all have some part to act in producing that 
grain in abundance from a single kernel. The 
uninterrupted sunshine would not have done it ; 
the heat of summer, undiminished and constant, 
would not have done it. But night came with its 
dews, the wind with its breath, and the rain with 
its moisture ; and they all combined to produce 
the harvest. So out of trials have come, at times, 
the finest specimens of true nobility, and the rar- 
est instances of godlike devotion. Ay, the men- 
tal storm, which sweeps over the world now and 
then, has much to do with training men for use- 
fulness on earth and glory in heaven. Curtis, in 
his History of the Constitution, indulges in these 
very truthful and pertinent remarks : — 

" There is a law of the moral government of 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 101 

the universe, which ordains that all that is great, 
and valuable, and permanent in character, must 
be the result, not of theoretical teaching or natu- 
ral aspiration, of spontaneous resolve or uninter- 
rupted success, but of trial, of suffering, of the 
fiery furnace of temptation, of the dark hours of 
disappointment and defeat. The character of the 
man is distinguishable from the character of the 
child that he once was, chiefly by the effects of 
this universal law. There are the same natural 
impulses, the same mental, moral, and physical 
constitution, with which he was born into 
the world. What is it that has given him the 
strength, the fortitude, the unchanging principle, 
and the moral and intellectual power, which he 
exhibits in after years ? It has not been constant 
pleasure and success, nor unmingled joy. It has 
been the hard discipline of pain and sorrow, the 
stern teachings of experience, the struggle against 
the consequences of its own errors, and the chas- 
tisement inflicted by its own faults. 

" This law pertains to all human things. It is 
as clearly traceable in its application to the charac- 
ter of a people, as to that of an individual ; and 
as the institutions of a people, when voluntarily 
formed by them out of the circumstances of their 
condition, are necessarily the result of the previ- 
ous discipline and the past teachings of their 



102 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

career, we can trace this law also in the creation 
and growth of what is most valuable in their in- 
stitutions. When we have so traced it, the unal- 
terable relations of the moral universe entitle us 
to look for the elements of greatness and strength 
in whatever has been the product of such teach- 
ings, such discipline, and such trials." 

2. We have useful lessons in relation to the 
peculiar relationship existing between Ruth and 
Naomi — mother-in-law, daughter-in-law. These 
a law relationships " are the most delicate and 
trying we can enter, and unless the parties are 
prudent and cautious, evil and sorrow will be the 
consequence. The father-in-law and the son-in- 
law, the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, 
are often arrayed against each other most un- 
justly and cruelly. It is often the case, that a 
mother of a family of children dies; her husband 
makes the best selection in his power, and soon 
brings to his home a partner who shall share his 
sorrows and joys, and educate for him his little 
ones. The sacrifice, if any is made, is not on the 
part of the husband, not on the part of the chil- 
dren, but on the part of the wife, who comes, with 
woman's true and trusting heart, to educate chil- 
dren not her own. And yet there are in this 
world of ours human serpents, who will creep 
into that little home before the marriage takes 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 103 

place, and whisper to those children all the horrid 
tales that can be imagined about the unnatural 
cruelty of step-mothers, until the innocent chil- 
dren begin to dream that their father is about to 
bring into their home a savage, at whose cruelty 
they will repine, and at whose violence their dear 
mother's bones will turn in their graves. And 
after the marriage has taken place, when these 
children begin to feel that the step-parent is not 
so horrible a creature after all, these same slimy 
creatures — I know no softer words to use — these 
slimy creatures will come in to ask these children 
if the step-mother does not abuse them, and thus 
inflame their minds by hellish insinuations. 

A step-mother is generally a better educator of 
children than a natural mother. The latter is 
often swayed by her warm, tender affections to a 
dangerous indulgence, while the former looks at 
the dispositions of the children in a calmer light, 
and with a surer judgment. More children are 
ruined by the indulgence of natural parents than 
are driven away from home by the cruelty or neg- 
lect of step-parents ; and the jealousy and evil sur- 
misings about step-parents are unreasonable and 
cruel. There are step-parents who are brutal and 
ferocious ; and thei?e are also natural parents who 
are the same brutal creatures. The woman who 
assumes the education of a family of children, 



104 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

and rears them well, is worthy of exalted praise ; 
and of all who will greet her with joy in the spirit 
world, none will give her a more cordial welcome 
than the natural mother herself, who was snatched 
away by the hand of death. 

3. We are also struck with the religious decision 
of Ruth. " Where thou goest I will go ; where 
thou lodgest I will lodge ; thy people shall be my 
people, and thy God my God." Under the tutor- 
age of Naomi, the Moabitish heathen maiden had 
become a worshipper of God. She had renounced 
her idol worship, had cast away her heathen gods, 
and bowed at the shrine of Him who filleth im- 
mensity with his presence. She preferred still 
the service of the God of Israel, and with holy 
constancy followed Naomi. 

that all the worshippers of Jesus would do 
the same ! Moab, with its exciting pleasures, its 
music and its mirth, its folly and its feasts, is 
spread out before them, and not *a few who em- 
brace Christ, like Orpah, imprint upon his cheek 
the parting kiss and return. The hour of ad- 
versity and sorrow comes, and they yield, bend, 
and bow before it. The sweet conduct of Ruth 
returning with her mother is an example to every 
young disciple. Her language should be our lan- 
guage, and her declaration our declaration. To 
Christ we should declare, " Where thou goest," 



NAOMI AND RUTH. 105 

— up to the mountain of temptation, clown into 
the vale of sorrow, to the retirement of prayer, 
to baptismal burial, to sad and bloody Golgotha, 

— " I will go ; thy people," — be they Hindoos or 
Armenians, Greeks or Jews, bond or free, rich or 
poor, — "shall be my people; thy God," who 
gave thee strength, " shall be my God," and for- 
ever will I serve him. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PRAYING MOTHER. 

HAMAH. 

Now, mother, sing the tune 
You sang last night ; I'm weary, and must sleep ; 
Who was it called my name ? Nay, do not weep ; 

You'll all come soon ! 

And Hannah prayed. 1 Samuel, ii. 1. 

- HAT a record is this ! Few could be 
more simple, and few could be more 
sublime. " Hannah prayed." Whom 
did she pray to ? To Baal ? To a 
block of marble ? To a stock or a stone ? Or to 
the living God ? What did she pray for ? For 
gold ? For the adornments of person ? For com- 
fort and ease ? For the luxuries of life, or for 
higher comforts, and for diviner treasures ? " Han- 
nah prayed." Well, if we knew no more about her, 
we should respect her for that ; for praying befits, 
a human lip, and well adorns a mortal tongue. 

(106) 




HANNAH. 107 

Let us trace the history of this woman, see who 
she was, how she lived, and where she died. 
There was a man of Mount Ephraim named 
Elkanah. He was a devout and godly mail, who 
walked in the religion of the nation, but who had 
fallen into the folly of the times, and had married 
two wives, Penninah and Hannah. As a natural 
consequence, these two wives quarrelled with each 
other. Though they might have been amiable 
and forbearing in other respects, the relations they 
sustained to each other made them jealous, peev- 
ish, discontented, and unhappy. The husband had 
trespassed on the great law of being, and he paid 
the penalty in his unhappy home and the conten- 
tions between his wives. To Hannah our atten- 
tion will in this article be given. 

This personage is early introduced to us as a 
praying woman. In those days, the people of the 
Lord were accustomed to go up to Shiloh to wor- 
ship God. On one occasion, Eli, the prophet, saw 
her on her bended knees, weeping and muttering 
to herself. Her posture was unlike that he had 
been accustomed to see observed, and the whole 
appearance of the woman was singularly strange. 
He thought she was drunk, and charged her with 
it ; reproached her for being in the temple at so 
early an hour in a state of intoxication, and 
sternly bade her put away her wine. But she 



108 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

was drunken only with sorrow, and she replied so 
feelingly that all doubt was removed from his 
mind, "No, my lord," she said; "I am not 
drunken, as you suppose, but I am a woman of a 
sorrowful spirit ; I have drunk neither wine nor 
strong drink, but have poured out my soul before 
God. It is deep, crushing grief, and not intoxi- 
cation, that you now behold." Eli was convinced 
of the truth of her solemn declaration, and utter- 
ing upon her his blessing, sent her away. She 
went, with the hope of a speedy answer to her 
prayer swelling her bosom, and ere long that 
answer came, and she took her child to the man 
of God at Shiloh, saying, " My lord, I am the 
woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the 
Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath 
given me my petition which I asked of him, and 
therefore also have I lent him to the Lord : as 
long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord." 

Then she poured out her soul in full, deep 
thanksgiving to God. The record is, " Hannah 
prayed ; " and the words of her prayer have come 
down to us in all their beauty, showing the culti- 
vation of Hannah's mind, the fervency of her 
spirit, and the depth of her piety. She left her 
child with Eli, to be trained for God, and returned 
to her home, to pray still for him. Almost all 
the history of Hannah is bound up ill these few 



HANNAH. 109 

transactions. She appears to us not as a warrior, 
nor a judge, but as a lonely and pious woman, 
praying for her son, dedicating him to God, giving 
him up to a sacred life, and leaving him at the 
altar of duty. 

We are naturally led from this brief narrative 
to a contemplation of 

THE PRAYING MOTHER. 

Any child so blessed of God as to have a pray- 
ing mother, starts in life with a natural advantage. 
Other things being equal, a woman who prays for 
her children, who bears them on the arms of her 
faith to the mercy seat, best fulfils the parental 
relation, and subserves the mission to which God 
has called her. A mother who does not pray may 
be faithful to her children in many respects ; she 
may attend to all their little wants ; she may feed 
them and clothe them ; when they are sick, she 
may watch over them with the greatest tenderness 
clay and night ; but if she cannot pray for them, 
she is destitute of a power which is vitally essen- 
tial to the proper discharge of her duties. A 
prayerless mother leading her little child amid 
pitfalls and dangers, and never commending that 
child to God, never lifting up her heart to the 
great Father for wisdom to direct and grace to 
save, — 0, how sad a sight ! 



110 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

It has been the testimony of good men in all 
ages, that they owe to their mothers their pros- 
perity and happiness. Before the child goes out 
into life, the mother has the training of his young 
mind. The father may make the laws of the fam- 
ily, and may compel obedience to those laws ; but 
it is the mother who comes into contact with the 
heart of the child, and day by day makes impres- 
sions upon it which are never erased. The child 
of a wicked woman may grow rip to virtue, use- 
fulness, and honor ; there have been such cases. 
The child of the devout, praying mother may 
grow up to deeds of shame and blood ; there have 
been such cases. But these are exceptions to the 
rule, and they only serve to throw into a brighter 
foreground the rule, which makes a virtuous son 
grow up under the influence of a mother's prayers, 
and which makes a vicious son out of the example 
of a wicked mother. That learned and eloquent 
man, Richard Knill, says, " I have a vivid recol- 
lection of the effect of maternal influence. My 
honored mother was a religious woman, and she 
watched over and instructed me as pious mothers 
are accustomed to do. Alas ! I often forgot her 
admonitions ; but in my most thoughtless days, I 
never lost the impressions which her holy example 
has made on my mind. After spending a large 
portion of my life in foreign lands, I returned 



HANNAH. Ill 

again to visit my native village. Both my parents 
died while I was in Russia, and their house is now 
occupied by my brother. The furniture remains 
just the same as when I was a boy ; and at night 
I was accommodated with the same bed on which 
I had often slept before ; but my busy thoughts 
would not let me sleep. I was thinking how God 
had led me through the journey of life. At last, 
the light of the morning darted through the little 
window, and then my eye caught a sight of the 
spot where my sainted mother, forty years before, 
took me by the hand, and said, ' Come, my dear, 
kneel down with me, and I will go to prayer.' 
This completely overcame me. I seemed to hear 
the very tones of her voice ; I recollected some of 
her expressions ; and I burst into tears, and arose 
from my bed, and fell upon my knees just on the 
spot where my mother kneeled, and thanked God 
that I had once a praying mother. And 0, if 
all parents could feel what I felt then, I am sure 
they would pray with their children, as well as 
pray for them." 

Very much to the same effect is the testimony 
of Bishop Hall, whose deeds of pious worth are 
remembered, though he is dead : " How often 
have I blessed the memory of those divine pas- 
sages of experimental divinity which I have heard 
from her mouth ! What day did she pass without 



112 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FKIEND. 

a large task of private devotion, whence she would 
still come forth with a countenance of undissem- 
bled mortification ? Never have been read to me 
such feeling lectures of piety, neither have I known 
any soul that more accurately practised them than 
her own." 

Men in other vocations in life have made the 
same assertion, and have ascribed to their mothers 
the excellences of their own characters, and the 
usefulness of their own lives. The venerable 
John Q. Adams paid the following tribute to his 
mother: " It is due to gratitude and nature, that 
I should acknowledge and avow that, such as I 
have been, whatever it was, such as I am, what- 
ever it is, and such as I hope to be in all futurity, 
must be ascribed, under Providence, to the pre- 
cepts and example of my mother." 

The excellent poet Cowper, whose poetry has 
so often been sung by the fireside and in the 
sanctuary, which has enlivened the tedious, weary 
day, and has been hummed by the watcher at 
night, wrote to Lady Hesketh on the receipt of 
his mother's picture, " I had rather possess my 
mother's picture than the richest jewel in the 
British crown ; for I loved her with an affection 
that her death, fifty years since, has not the least 
abated." He was not ashamed to acknowledge 
that his mother formed an object of hallowed 



HANNAH. 113 

veneration in his soul. "When she died, he 
wrote, — 

" My mother !. when I learned that thou wast dead,, 
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? 
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, 
"Wretch even then, life's journey just begun ? 
Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unfelt, a kiss ; 
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss. 
Ah, that maternal smile ! it answers, * Yes ! ' " 

A great many young men seem to consider it a 
weakness to pay any considerable attention to the 
counsels, prayers, and requirements of parents. 
Quick as possible they get out of the way of the 
voice of the " old woman," as they call her, and 
laugh at her pious appeals and admonitions. But 
somehow the memory of that praying mother will 
come home to the conscience, and many a disso- 
lute youth has been saved by the thought, " My 
mother prayed for me." A young man, writing 
to a friend, says, " I have been tempted to the 
greatest crimes known among men ; once I stood 
a long time on the end of a wharf, waiting for a 
few individuals near by to retire, that I might 
cast myself overboard, and end a wretched, mis- 
erable life, but was held back when tempted to 
crime — was saved when tempted to suicide — by 
the single thought of my mother's prayers." 
Eev. Dr. Young tells a story like this : " An aged, 
pious woman had one son. She used every means 
8 



114 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FKIEND. 

in her power to lead him to the Saviour ; but he 
grew up gay and dissipated. She still followed 
him with prayers and entreaties, faithfully warned 
him of his awful state as a sinner before God, and 
told him what his end would be, dying in that 
condition. But all seemed alike unavailing. He 
one day said, ' Mother, let me have my best 
clothes ; I am going to a ball to-night.' 

" She expostulated with him, and urged him not 
to go ; but all in vain. ' Mother,' said he, i let 
me have my clothes ; I will go ; it's useless to say 
any thing about it.' 

" He put on his clothes, and was going out. 
She stopped him, and said, ' My child, do not go.' 
He still persisted ; when she added, ' My son, 
remember when you are dancing with your com- 
panions in the ball room, I shall be out in that 
wilderness, praying to the Lord to convert your 
soul.' The youth went to the ball, and the dan- 
cing commenced ; but instead of the usual gayety, 
an unaccountable gloom pervaded the whole as- 
sembly. One said, ' We never had so dull a meet' 
ing in our lives.' Another observed, ' I wish we 
had not come ; we have no life ; we cannot get- 
along.' A third continued, ' I cannot think what 
is the matter.' The young man in question felt 
his conscience smitten, and bursting into tears, 
said, ' I know what is the matter ; my poor old 



HANNAH. 115 

mother is now praying in yonder wilderness for her 
ungodly son.' He took his hat and said, ' I will 
never be found in such a place as this again.' " 

Thus statesmen, theologians, poets, men of sci- 
ence, and men of letters, unite in according to the 
praying mother the highest honors for her influ- 
ence in moulding and training the young minds 
committed to her. There are a few considerations 
connected with this subject, worthy to be indelibly 
impressed upon the mind of every young person. 

1. Whoever has a good, pious mother should 
respect her counsels while she lives, and respect 
her memory when dead. The counsels of a 
mother are more disinterested and free from self- 
ishness than those of any other person on earth. 
The father, though he may love his son, looks 
upon him in a different light from that in which 
he stands before the mother ; and whenever she 
has information, her advice is worthy of great 
consideration. Woman generally has a fairer 
opportunity to judge than man. She dwells at 
home, out of the reach of the noise and confusion 
of active life, withdrawn from the ambitions, 
strifes, jealousies, contentions, and cares of out-of- 
door life, and can weigh more calmly than man 
the worth of honesty, and rectitude, and reputa- 
tion. She can rise above parties, above dollars 
and cents, above commercial alliances, and judge 



116 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

for the highest good of her son or daughter. If 
our young men would go home to the fireside, 
and consult, as they map out their course in life, 
her who has always been their best friend, they 
would not so often make mistakes when they are 
acting their part on the stage of life. 

And when her sun goes down behind the west- 
ern hills, and her place in the family circle is va- 
cant, her memory should not be forgotten. She 
deserves a monument as lasting as time, in every 
grateful heart. 

2. The memory of a good mother is ennobling 
to the feelings, and restraining to the passions. 
We associate a mother with home, with childhood. 
A father's name is associated with wealth, with 
splendid exploits, with labors. But a mother's 
name carries us back to the old homestead, to the 
long winter evenings, to scenes which even now 
seem dearer than all manhood's projects ; to the 
place where rested the old hearthstone, beside 
which was read the old family Bible. Our spirits 
are drawn back to that hour — to that spot where 
are 

" Hearts that throb with eager gladness, 
Hearts that echo to our own, 
While grim care and haunting sadness 
Mingle ne'er in look or tone. 

" Care may tread the halls of daylight, 
Sadness haunt the midnight hour, 



HANNAH. 117 

But the weird and witching twilight 

Brings the glowing hearthstone's dower. 

" Altar of our holiest feelings, 

Childhood's well-remembered shrine, 
Spirit yearnings, soul-revealings, 
Wreaths immortal round thee twine." 

The purest and best men have acknowledged 
the influence of home and maternal tenderness. 
It not only moulded them in youth, but it fol- 
lowed them like the influence of a holy spirit into 
manhood, and to old age. But a short time be- 
fore his death, the great Daniel Webster, whose 
intellectual like does not live, looked back to the 
rude home of his parents, to the scenes amid 
which his brothers were reared, and gave expres- 
sion to the very sentiment which I am endeavoring 
to illustrate. 

" It did not happen to me," he says, " to be 
born in a log cabin ; but my elder brothers and 
sisters were born in a log cabin, raised among the 
snow drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so 
early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude 
chimney, and curled over the frozen hill, there 
was no similar evidence of a white man's habita- 
tion between it and the settlements on the rivers 
of Canada. Its remains still exist ; I make it an 
annual visit ; I carry my children to it, to teach 
them the hardships endured by the generations 



118 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

which have gone before them. I love to dwell on 
the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the 
early affections, and the narrations and incidents 
which mingle with all I know of this primitive 
family abode. I weep to think that none of those 
who inhabited it are now among the living ; and 
if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him 
who raised it, and defended it against savage vio- 
lence and destruction, cherished all the domestic 
virtues beneath its roof, and through the fire and 
blood of seven years' revolutionary war, shrank 
from no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and 
to raise his children to a condition better than his 
own, may my name, and the name of my poster- 
ity, be blotted forever from the memory of man- 
kind." 

Had he attempted to speak of his mother, he 
might have used the language of another as great 
and as wise, who long ago passed away — " Ah, 
there I must pause ; for if a man would be elo- 
quent upon his mother's grave, he must be still 
and weep.^ 

There are now in the community hundreds of 
young persons who have parents at home, whose 
memory and whose former tenderness give cheer- 
fulness to all their labors, and whose ever-present 
countenances exert a most hallowed influence 
upon their lives. When temptation speaks, when 



HANNAH. 119 

allurements come, when the multitudinous voices 
of sinful pleasure appear, when all other safe- 
guards are broken down, there often comes the 
pale face of the mother, like a vision of the past, 
looking down from the walls of life upon the lone 
and tempted child, just ready to give way. The 
young heart gathers strength, as those withered 
lips begin to move in silent pleading. I make no 
over-estimate when I say that hundreds among us 
are kept from vice, incited to diligence, led to 
prayer, by the memory of maternal love. 

" With backward glance of anxious love, 

She quits the humble cottage door, 
And through the wet or dusty street, 
She treads, with worn yet willing feet, 

The path oft trod before. 

"What sudden thought calls up the blood, 
The crimson tide that fain would speak, 
As swift the arrowy shuttle flies, 
As swifter still her task she plies, 
While tears are on her cheek ? 

*' That blush wears not a tinge of shame ; 

Those tears are not the tears of sin ; 
Some hope, or fear, with sudden start, 
Sends bounding from the busy heart 

The telltale blood within. 

" Those tears bespeak a mother's need — 

A widowed mother, thin and pale ; 
For who will give the orphan food, 
And find the scanty share of wood, 

When her weak efforts fail ? " 



120 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

If all this that I have said be the influence of 
maternal piety and prayer, how important is it 
that every mother should be a woman of prayer ! 
We can hardly estimate the influence of the 
mother upon her children. It begins with the 
first day of life, and ends with the last day. The 
influence of woman in society any where is very 
great — beyond all estimate. Dr. Wayland, as 
old a man as he is, and as little disposed to flatter 
any body, grows enthusiastic when speaking of the 
mission of woman in society. " In all the pre- 
paratory studies of boyhood and youth," he says, 
" the services of female instructors are to be pre- 
ferred. "We doubt whether a youthful mind ever 
received an improper bias from the influence or 
teachings of a woman. The moral impulses 
they communicate are always right. They have 
an instinctive and beautiful sympathy with the 
tender susceptibilities and faculties of the young, 
which enables them to exercise the most healthful 
influence over their moral and mental training. 
This is nature — a wise dispensation of Provi- 
dence ; God himself has formed and designed 
woman as the first instructor of the young." 

Though not wholly endorsing this statement, 
which is sometimes contradicted by the natural 
deductions of common life, we do see, feel, and 
acknowledge the influence of woman extending 



HANNAH. 121 

into all circles, and wherever exerted for good, 
producing happiness and heaven on earth. But 
a mother's influence goes down deeper still, and 
touches the very framework of social life. Hence 
every mother should know how to pray; piety 
should be the element in which her children 
should be educated. The father will attend to 
the training, the business, the out-of-door concerns 
of the child ; the mother has the heart, and no 
hand but that of piety can form it aright. Every 
child is an object of intense solicitude to the 
mother. When others sleep, she wakes, and 
thinks upon her charge ; when others enjoy the 
pleasures of life, she stays at home, to watch and 
wait beside the bed of the one she loves. Often 
her thoughts turn upon the way in which she may 
best educate that child for usefulness and happi- 
ness ; and 0, if she forgets that piety and prayer 
are among the highest qualifications for her ser- 
vice, she forgets what she should most remember 
and practise. 

And if a prayerful mother has such an influ- 
ence, and does so much for the usefulness and 
happiness of her child, with what pity should we 
look upon the child who has no mother, who 
comes to manhood or womanhood with no such 
adviser ! We judge very harshly some of the 
young people who stray away from integrity and 



122 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

virtue. Go to some of the poor, unfortunate men 
who have committed crime, and are now confined 
in our state prison, working out at hard labor a 
severe but just sentence, and ask them what 
brought them to that place of infamy, and they 
will say, " We had no praying mothers." They 
will tell you how they were left in early youth 
without maternal counsel, cast out to weep and 
mourn in homeless desolation, without friends to 
love and bless them ; or, what is worse, they may 
tell you that they had homes and parents, but 
those parents were intemperate. That mother 
who should have taught them prayer and praise, 
only taught them to lisp the dreadful accents of 
profanity. She who should have pointed them 
a way to God and heaven, only led them into the 
slippery way of vice and crime ; she who should 
have told them to love truth, only told them to 
shun and escape detection. As you stand before 
these wretched men, so lost to good society, you 
must remember that you might have been where 
they are, if God in his mercy had not given you 
a pious mother, who taught you to shun the ways 
of sin, and flee to the Rock of Ages. Had your 
mother educated them, and their mothers trained 
you, they to-day might be sitting in this house, 
and you in your prison listening to the chaplain 
of the house of correction. 



HANNAH. 123 

Go ask the fallen women how they became so 
degraded, and they will in many cases tell yon, 
" We had no mother." Late at night, not long 
ago, a young woman was taken up dead drunk in 
the streets of Boston. Her countenance was hag- 
gard, her eyes bloodshot, her form scantily cov- 
ered with clothes, and her whole appearance be- 
tokened misery and degradation extreme. She 
was taken to a cell in the watch house, and in the 
morning was given up to a few noble-hearted wo- 
men, who are devoting their lives to the good of 
their sex. Once she was a child, with fair hopes 
and bright prospects. Her eye was quick, and 
her countenance beautiful. Nay, more ; she was 
virtuous and happy, loving and loved. Further, 
she was once a professed disciple of Christ. In 
early life, she was consecrated in baptism, at the 
altar received the hand of Christian fellowship, 
and from sacred hands she has taken the broken 
body and falling blood. And what has wrought 
this change ? Her father and mother died while 
she was a child. Thus beginneth the sorrow. 
She came to the city, and here met the deceiver. 
She had no father, no mother, and her heart 
yearned for some protector, and she yielded to 
sin. 0, had there been a mother's pious memory,, 
or a mother's prayers, she might not have fallen, 
How different has been your lot ! Every want of 



124 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

yours has been supplied, every wish gratified; 
you have been drawn away from temptation, while 
that mother was near you all the time in child- 
hood, — 

" As if some angel hand, with gentlest care, 
From withering storms the tender flower to spare, 
Had borne it hence in love, to plant it where 

Blighting comes never ; 

To bloom forever, 

In the garden of God, 

By the side of life's river." 

That fallen one had no mother. You have. 
There is the difference. No mother ! Well does 
one, whose eye has seen and whose heart has felt 
for the desolate and wretched, exclaim, " What a 
volume of sorrowful truth is comprised in that 
single sentence — no mother ! We must go far 
down the hard, rough paths of life, and become 
inured to care and sorrow in their sternest forms, 
before we can take home to our own experience 
the dread reality — no mother — without a strug- 
gle and a tear. But when it is said to a frail 
young girl, just passing towards the life of woman, 
how sad is the story summed up in that one short 
sentence ! Who now shall administer the needed 
counsel, who now shall check the wayward fan- 
cies, who now shall bear with the errors and fail- 
ings of the motherless girl ? 

" Deal gently with the child. Let not the cup 



HANNAH. 125 

of her sorrow be overfilled by the harshness of 
your bearing, or your unsympathizing coldness. 
Is she heedless of her doing ? Is she careless in 
her movements ? Remember, 0, remember ' she 
has no mother.' When her young companions 
are gay and joyous, does she sit in sorrowing ? 
Does she pass with a downcast eye and languid 
step, when you would fain witness the gushing 
and overflowing gladness of youth ? Chide her 
not, for she is motherless, and the great sorrow 
comes down upon her soul like an incubus. Can 
you gain her confidence ? Can you win her love ? 
Come, then, to the motherless, with the boon of 
your tenderest care ; and by the memory of your 
own mother, already perhaps passed away, by the 
fulness of your own remembered sorrow, by the 
possibility that your own child may yet be mother- 
less, contribute, as far as you may, to relieve the 
loss of that fair, frail child, who is written, 
< Motherless.' " 

0, if you have had a mother but for a single 
year, and that year one of thought and reflection, 
what a blessing to you ! Dr. Todd had a mother 
one hour ; all the rest of his life, her sun was be- 
clouded. But one hour she woke and blessed her 
child, and that hour threw its charm around the 
whole of his mortal day, " I can recollect," he 
says, " that when a child, I was standing at the 



1%6 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

open window, at the close of a lovely summer's 
day. The large, red sun was just sinking away 
behind the western hills ; the sky was gold and 
purple commingled ; the winds were sleeping ; 
and a soft, solemn stillness seemed to hang over the 
earth. I was watching the sun as he sent his yel- 
low rays through the trees, and felt a kind of 
awe, though I knew not wherefore. Just then, 
my mother came to me ; she was raving with 
frenzy, for reason had long since left its throne, 
and left her a victim of madness. She came up to 
me wild with insanity. I pointed to the glorious 
sun in the west, and in a moment she was calm. 
She took my little hands within hers, and told me 
that ' the great God made the sun, the stars, the 
world, every thing ; that he it was who made her 
little boy, and gave him an immortal spirit ; that 
yonder sun, and the green fields, and the world 
itself, will one day be burned up ; but that the 
spirit of her child will then be alive, for he must 
live when heaven and earth are gone ; that he 
must pray to the great God, and love him, and 
serve him forever.' She let go my hands ; mad- 
ness returned ; she hurried away. I stood with 
my eyes filled with tears, and my little bosom 
heaving with emotions which I could not have 
described ; but I can never forget the impressions 
which that conversation of my poor mother left 



HANNAH. 127 

upon Hie. 0, what a blessing it would have been, 
had the inscrutable providence of God given me a 
mother who would have repeated those instruc- 
tions, accompanied by her prayers, through all the 
days of my childhood ! But ' even so, Father ; 
for so it seemeth good in thy sight.' " 

But we must stop, blessing God that there are 
so many praying mothers, to take the lone and 
friendless ones, and lead them up to happiness 
and God. And God grant, that when we die, it 
may be said of each of us, as of one of old, " And 
Hannah prayed." 



CHAPTER VII. 

FEMALE EDTJ-CATIOST. 

QUEEN OF SHEBA. 

Of elements 
The grosser feeds the purer ; earth the sea, 
Earth and the sea feed air, the air those fires 
Ethereal, and as the lowest first the moon ; 
"Whence in her visage round these spots, unpurged 
Yapors, not yet into her substance turned. 
Nor doth the moon no nourishment exhale 
From her moist continent to higher orbs ; 
The sun, that light imparts to all, receives 
From all his alimental recompense 
Jn humid exhalations, and at even 
Sups with the ocean. 

The Queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this gener- 
ation, and shall condemn it; for she came from the uttermost parts 
of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, a greater 
than Solomon is here. Matthew, xii. 42. 

(\#T is not certain who the Queen of Sheba 
was. The Scripture references to her are 
so few, that we are left in darkness as to 
the place from whence she came. Gather- 
ing all the testimony we can, we are led to the 

(128) 




QUEEN OF SHEBA. 129 

conclusion that she was an Ethiopian sovereign, 
whose kingdom was identical with that over which 
Candace reigned. She was a literary woman, 
who held wisdom in such estimation, that she 
left her kingdom, on the banks of the Nile, and 
journeyed to the city of Jerusalem, to see Solo- 
mon, to converse with him on grave subjects, 
which were beyond the grasp of her own cour- 
tiers. Beyond these general facts, but little is 
known of her history. We are driven to con- 
jecture for all we have of her life, person, and 
government. In all the pictures or pen portraits 
I have ever seen, she appears beautiful in person 
and excellent in character; and in the absence 
of positive facts, it is only just to suppose her 
exceedingly beautiful, and as virtuous as fair. 
And yet it is not often found that great personal 
beauty in woman accompanies great vigor of in- 
tellect. Somehow God seems to have denied to 
most literary women extraordinary grace of per- 
son. He has made plainness to be a companion 
to intellect. This may arise from the fact that 
plain, homely women, denied by nature grace of 
person, are driven to seek beauty of mind, and 
substitute for outward adornment the higher ele- 
gance of thought and soul. Anna Comnena, who 
wrote the Alexiad, — books filled with learning, 
beauty, poetry, soul, and life ; who proved herself a 
9 



130 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

fit biographer of an illustrious emperor ; who was 
a bright ornament to Grecian literature and art, 
— is said to have been wonderfully plain, with a 
countenance bespeaking no intelligence. Hypa- 
sia, the daughter of Theon, who stood at the head 
of the Alexandrian school; who sat in a chair 
of philosophy where Hierocles and Ammonius 
had sat before her ; who filled Egypt and the 
world with her fame ; who was considered as an 
oracle of wisdom, — was famed as much for her 
plain looks as for her learning. The beautiful 
features and the form divine were not hers. 

Coming nearer to our times, we find Queen 
Elizabeth gifted with a noble mind, but with a 
very plain face ; Hannah More, whose fame 
should be known to all her sex, was homely ; 
Madame Necker, the mother of Madame de Stael, 
was devoid of personal beauty, but highly culti- 
vated ; Harriet Newell, the three Mrs. Judsons, 
and numerous other women, were famed more 
for intellectual and moral faculties than for grace 
of person. Nor did they need it. One who has 
a cultivated mind, or a noble heart, has a treasure 
of far more worth than the embellishments of 
person and the beauty of form or feature. 

I wish to present at this time a few thoughts 
connected with female education. There has 
been an opinion prevalent in days past, that sons 



QUEEN OF SHEBA. 131 

should be educated, and daughters should not. 
We have reared colleges for young men, and 
nobly endowed them; but the colleges for females 
are few, and those few of an inferior grade. If 
a daughter can obtain a tolerable education in a 
boarding school, be able to thrum the piano, and 
recite a few common sentences in French, she 
is deemed a well-educated woman. Philosophy, 
science, art, are left for men who are looking to 
the learned professions. But the results of this 
are proved to be disastrous upon the children, and 
a better system is being introduced. A writer 
who had seen much of the world writes as fol- 
lows : — 

" When I lived among the Choctaw Indians, I 
held a consultation with one of their principal 
chiefs, respecting the successive stages of their 
progress in the arts and virtues of civilized life ; 
and among other things, he informed me at their 
first start they fell into a mistake — they only 
sent their boys to school. They became intelli- 
gent men, but they married uneducated and un- 
civilized wives ; and the result was, that the chil- 
dren were all like the mother ; and soon the 
father lost his interest in both wife and children." 
And this has been the result every where. The 
effects of the false system of education have fallen 
upon the children, who are trained by the mother. 
I remark, then, — 



132 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

1. The system of female education should em- 
brace the sciences, and grapple with all the more 
profound acquirements. It seems to be taken for 
granted that woman cannot learn, and should not 
engage in- the study of any profound subject. It 
is supposed that her mind was made for the orna- 
mental and superficial, rather than the erudite 
and laborious. But there are enough illustrations 
at hand to demonstrate that, in any walk of lit- 
erary pursuit, woman will keep pace with her 
male competitor. Society has required woman to 
confine herself to mere ornamental studies ; but 
when she has taken the reins into her own hand, 
she has proved herself equal to the most profound 
studies. I might mention Sophia Germain, who 
became proficient in the exact sciences, obtained 
repeated prizes of the Academy of Science in Paris, 
and was a constant contributor for the Journal 
of Mathematics. Her biographer states, that 
during those three days that revolution reigned 
in Paris, she sat calmly at home, preparing an 
elaborate treatise on the curvature of surfaces. 
I might speak of Lady Callcott, who published an 
approved History of Spain, and many other works 
which mark her as a woman of genius and learn- 
ing, and give her a noble rank among those whose 
names are engraven high on the monument of 
literary fame. I might refer to Mrs. Gove Nich- 



QUEEN OF SHEBA. 133 

ols, of our time, who lias become an accomplished 
lecturer to her sex on anatomy and physiology, 
giving instructive courses to those who crowd 
around her to receive her teachings. 

Time would fail me to mention the names of 
others among the living and the dead, such as 
Madame de Stael, Harriet Martineau, Margaret 
Fuller, Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Sigourney, all of whom 
ascend to eminent heights, not only for what is 
ornamental and fashionable in female education, 
but for what is substantial and profound in all 
literature. These cases teach us that woman is 
able to cope with her male competitor in any of 
the literary pursuits of our age and time. And 
if there be fewer women than men of science, it 
is not to be laid to native imbecility or want of 
intellectual power, but is a consequence of the 
misjudged and false style of female education. 

Every parent should endeavor to give his 
daughters as finished and substantial an education 
as he gives his sons. It is only in this way that 
the race can be forced up to a higher position 
in the scale of intelligent being. The present de- 
fective mode of female education is keeping our 
race from the high attainments for which it was 
fitted, and for which it is capable. 

2. Female education should embrace a knowl- 
edge of political economy and life. There is a 



134 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

general notion, as I have remarked, that a woman 
should take interest in nothing beyond her polite ac- 
complishments and her household duties. Hence, 
when a company of gentlemen and ladies are met 
for an evening's social intercourse, the conversa- 
tion often takes the most trivial and profitless turn. 
Men abandon their discussion of great and impor- 
tant subjects, and lower the theme down to the 
trivialities of life and the little tattle of the day. 
No greater insult could be paid to woman ; and 
yet there is none which she oftener invites by her 
own folly. The trouble lies with the system of 
education, which is false. A man is educated to 
think he must make his mark in the world ; that 
he must rise to eminence at some trade or profes- 
sion. He is led to exert himself. His ambition 
is stimulated, not always indeed by the most lau- 
dable motives, but to such a degree that he is im- 
pelled to go out to do some noble things. Young 
women are too often taught that the chief end of 
life is a fashionable marriage, and a dashing life 
afterwards. The extravagance of our coimtry is 
the legitimate offspring of such teachings. Our 
metropolitan cities give illustrations of the most 
unbounded extravagance, and the utmost ex- 
tremes of fashion and vanity. Did our rich mer- 
chants educate their daughters as Harriet Marti- 
neau was educated, we should not behold such 



QUEEN OF SHEBA. 135 

ruinous waste ; were they educated to think, to 
study, to descend into mines of knowledge, they 
would have less desire for fashion and splendor. 
A respectable Boston paper, speaking of the ex- 
travagant fashion of the present day, vouches for 
the following statement : " The bill for 1854 of a 
lady of this city, at a lace and embroidery store, 
was two thousand dollars, and of several ladies at 
one of the chief dry goods stores of the city, be- 
tween five and six thousand dollars each." 

And this is not a solitary case. Other cities 
surpass Boston. A Philadelphia letter writer says 
of a party which was given by the wife of a mil- 
lionnaire of that city a few days since, " About 
two thousand invitations were issued, and the en- 
tire cost of the entertainment, I am informed, 
was in the vicinity of twenty thousand dollars, 
the bare item of bouquets alone costing one thou- 
sand dollars, which were distributed in elegant 
profusion around her splendid mansion. It was 
nothing but one incessant revelling in luxury, 
from beginning to end. At half past four in the 
morning, green tea, sweet bread, and terrapins, as 
the closing feast, preparatory to the departure of 
the remaining guests, were served up." 

Extravagance and ignorance always go hand in 
hand ; and the reason why we behold these ex- 
tremes of fashion, is because our ladies are trained 



136 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

to the idea that display is better than learning 
and solid acquirements. Feasting and dancing- 
are the characteristics of great gatherings ; frivol- 
ity and nonsense the characteristics of lesser cir- 
cles. An eminent female writer, who spent some 
years in Europe, says, " In Italian circles, I have 
found the conversation very superficial, consisting 
much of playful and not ungraceful trifling on 
subjects of traditional gallantry, (from which, by 
the by, the clergy is by no means excluded,) 
and of the topics of the day, treated much in the 
style of a court journal. The comings and .goings 
of illustrious personages, the changes in the gene- 
alogical calendar, accidents by flood and fire, the- 
atres, singers, and though last, not least, the ballet, 
— these are the points round which conversation 
perpetually revolves. Now and then one sees a 
group whispering together on matters of greater 
importance, and from such a one there can occa- 
sionally be gleaned intelligence not to be found 
in books or papers." 

Is not the same thing true of society in Amer- 
ica ? In some countries, the saloons of wealthy 
women have been the resorts of philosophers, the 
walks of men of thought, and the abodes of in- 
formation. In our country, woman seems to be 
the priestess at the altar of pleasure, to scatter 
fading flowers, and not priceless gems, in the way 



QUEEN OF SHEBA. 137 

of the other sex. The remark is not true alone 
of the rich. The false education extends away 
down to the abodes of pauperism and the hovels 
of penury. The daughter of the rich man is ed- 
ucated to make a show, to live in splendor. She 
studies etiquette more than philosophy — the 
plate of fashion more than the map of life. The 
daughter of the poor man is educated to the idea 
that a perfect knowledge of household matters is 
all she needs. The sum of her education is to 
know enough to make her a good drudge for her 
husband. I contend that all these ideas are un- 
worthy of intelligent beings, who have intellectual 
as well as physical natures, and who are to live 
for eternity as well as time. It is not enough that 
you give your daughter a knowledge of household 
economy, or fashionable life. The former makes 
her a show ; the latter a plaything. The former 
keeps her sweating over a furnace, or practising 
the scrub ; the latter makes her most arduous 
work the reception of a guest, the arrangement 
of a dress, the embroidering of a purse, the read- 
ing of a novel. No woman should neglect to 
cultivate a knowledge of household economy, or 
the etiquette of society. She must have these. 
But she should have more. The cultivation of 
her mind, her acquaintance with the elements of 
knowledge, are essential to make her a compe- 



138 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

tent wife and a good mother. A woman without 
much intellect may cook her husband's food ; yea, 
more, she may dance and sing without knowing 
much ; but she cannot rise to the dignity of a 
true, noble woman, a good wife, a competent 
mother, without the mature development of her 
intellectual capacities. 

3. Female education should embrace the the- 
ory, experience, and practice of true religion. 
To this point I wish most to come, and on it I 
wish longest to dwell. Eeligion befits every body 
— a savant or a Hottentot, an old man or a little 
child. But there seems to be a special adaptation 
of piety to woman, and no system of education is 
at all perfect which does not include it. High 
above science and education towers a knowledge 
of God ; and the woman who secures it has re- 
sources which are closed against the lovers of 
pleasure and dissipation. Let me enumerate the 
benefits of religion to woman. 

1. It contributes to the grace of person. The 
countenance is a mirror in which the soul is seen. 
As a bow long bent loses its elasticity, so does the 
countenance long trained to one set of emotions 
learn to wear them. The virtues which religion 
most cultivates are those very virtues which give 
to the countenance its truest beauty. Content- 
ment, honesty, purity, integrity, are the elements 



QUEEN OP SHEBA. 139 

of character which beam out from the counte- 
nance, and play with grace and beauty on the 
face divine. You love to see a frank, noble, open 
countenance. Christian integrity is calculated to 
give such a countenance. You love to see a quiet, 
modest demeanor. Religious humility is well 
calculated to give it. These virtues, all of which 
are closely allied to genuine religion, and always 
follow in her train, are more essential to true 
beauty, than cargoes of paint or bazaars of dress. 
They give to form and feature a nobility which 
cannot come from any adornments, and stamp 
into the very life the elements of true beauty and 
grace. Beauty of features does not depend on 
any regularity of cast and form. The same coun- 
tenance which is handsome to-day may be hideous 
to-morrow. I once heard a gifted woman read one 
of the plays of Shakspeare. Art had given her 
such a command over herself that she could throw 
her whole soul into her face. As she read, that 
soul appeared ; at one time lighting up the coun- 
tenance with smiles, covering it with beauty, 
adorning it with grace, and making it radiant with 
light ; at another moment, covering it with frowns, 
transforming it with hate, disfiguring it with pas- 
sion, or making it hideous with lust. By turns, 
the beaittiful became repulsive ; the fair and grace- 
ful was changed to distortion, and what was gazed 



140 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

on with pleasure was turned from with aversion. 
So when these same virtues or vices come into the 
soul to make a permanent abode there, they 
change the very features to the likeness of them- 
selves. "Handsome is that handsome does," 
though quaintly expressed, is true to the letter 
and the life. 

2. Religion contributes to affability of manner. 
The manners of a man grow out of his views, his 
habits of thinking, his modes of living, and his 
conceptions of duty. Virtue is refining, elevating, 
ennobling ; vice is lowering, debasing, degrading, 
and devilish. Good manners are not to be learned 
from the dancing master or from the clown ; good 
manners do not consist in knowing how to bow 
gracefully, speak politely, and dance genteelly. 
Many persons can do this who have no conception 
of good manners or true politeness. True polite- 
ness is that natural superiority which comes from 
a good heart and an easy conscience. Religion 
inculcates the highest kind of politeness, such as 
cannot be learned in any hall of festivity. A 
good man will always be a courteous man. The 
principles of the gospel, which teach us to regard 
the rights and feelings of others, which lead us to 
suffer wrong rather than do wrong, which unite 
all in a common brotherhood, are the very princi- 
ples which lie at the basis of all good manners. 



QUEEN OF SHEBA. 141 

3. Religion contributes to make us contented 
and happy in our lot in life. Man has a soul of 
vast desires and boundless aspirations. He is al- 
ways reaching away from the finite to the infinite. 
He cannot be satisfied with the low and narrow 
things of this earth. To him they are but dust 
and ashes, and withered flowers, and worthless 
toys. 

" Attempt how vain, 
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God, 
With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love, 
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul, 
To satisfy the ocean with a drop, 
To marry immortality to death, 
And with the unsubstantial shade of time 
To fill the embrace of all eternity." 

But religion does fill the soul with true and 
substantial pleasure, and makes the dreariest spot 
in life a garden of delight. There are scenes of 
sorrow where religion alone has power to buoy up 
and sustain the soul. Without this the heart 
faints under the load. But the gospel has joys 
independent of all earthly considerations. It is 
designed to give perpetual happiness, keep the 
mind buoyant and elastic even amid afflictions, 
light and joyous even amid the dark nights of 
sorrow and bereavement. The old Covenanters, 
when flying from death over the hills of Scotland, 
sang and shouted ; the burning martyrs made the 



142 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FEIEND. 

hills echo with their triumphant psalms. One of 
their descendants, who recognized the duty, as 
well as privilege, of always rejoicing, has said, — 



"I love to sing when I am glad ; 

Song is. the echo of my gladness ; 
I love to sing when I am sad, 

Till song makes sweet my very sadness. 
'Tis pleasant when sweet voices chime 

To some sweet rhyme in concert only, 
And Christ to me is company, 

Good company, when I'm lonely." 



4. Religion is the bond of connection between 
the believer and Christ. This is an idea presented, 
or suggested, by the language of the text. The 
Queen of Sheba came from the uttermost parts 
of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But 
Christ is greater than Solomon, and all the world 
is urged to come to him. The system of educa- 
tion is defective which does not embrace a knowl- 
edge of him, for he stands out the sum of all 
knowledge and the sum of all wisdom. Hamil- 
ton, with characteristic beauty of language, com- 
pares Christ with Solomon, to the infinite advan- 
tage of the former. He says, " Solomon was wise, 
but Jesus was wisdom. Solomon had more un- 
derstanding than all the ancients, but Jesus was 
that eternal wisdom of which Solomon's genius 
was a borrowed spark, of which the deep flood 



QUEEN OF SHEBA. 143 

of Solomon's information was only an emitted rill. 
To which we only add the contrast in their tone. 
Each had a certain grandeur. Solomon's speech 
was regal. It had both the imperial amplitude 
and the autocratic emphasis — stately, decisive, 
peremptory. But the Saviour's was divine. 
There was no pomp of diction, but there was a 
godlike depth of meaning ; and such was its 
spontaneous majesty, that the hearer felt how • 
easily he could speak a miracle. And miracles 
he often spake ; but so naturally did they emerge 
from his discourse, and so noiselessly did they 
again subside into its current, that we as fre- 
quently read of men astonished at his doctrine 
as of men amazed at his doings. But though 
both spake with authority, — the one* with author- 
ity as a king of men, the other with authority as 
the Son of God, — there is a wonderful difference 
in point of the pervasive feeling. Like a Prome- 
theus chained to the rock of his own remorse, the 
Preacher pours forth his mighty woes in solitude, 
and, truly human, is mainly piteous of himself. 
Consequently, his enthroned misery, his self-ab- 
sorbed and stately sorrow, move you to wonder, 
rather than to weep ; and, like a gladiator dying 
in marble, you are thankful that the sufferer is 
none of your kindred. But though greater in his 
sorrows, the Saviour was also greater in his sym- 



144 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

patliies ; and though silent about his personal 
anguish, there is that in his mild aspect which 
tells each who meets it, if his grief be great, his 
love is greater. And whilst Solomon is so king- 
like that he does not ask you to be his friend, the 
Saviour is so godlike that he solicits your affec- 
tion, and so brotherly that he wins it. Indeed, 
here is the mystery of godliness, — God manifest 
in flesh, that flesh may see how God is love, and 
that through the loveliness of Jesus we may be 
attracted and entranced into the love of God. 
melancholy monarch, how funereal is thy tread, 
as thou pacest up and down thine echoing gal- 
leries, and disappearest in the valley of Death- 
shadow ! " 

The Queen of Sheba came from the uttermost 
parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. 
She came from her throne, from her royal hon- 
ors, from her attendants, to see mortal wisdom, 
and listen to mortal renown. But a greater than 
Solomon presents his claims to the women of our 
times. He who went from house to house ; who 
discoursed with the woman of Samaria ; who con- 
versed with the sisters of Bethany ; who visited 
salvation on all with whom he associated ; Jesus, 
the Saviour, far greater than Solomon, appeals to 
each of you. He offers you all wisdom and all 
grace. Q that some of you would say to-day, 



QUEEN OF SHEBA. 145 

with young Arthur Hallam, who saw earth, and 
knew its worthlessness, "Lord, I have viewed 
this world over in which thou hast set me ; I have 
tried how this and that thing will fit my spirit, 
and the design of my creation, and can find noth- 
ing on which to rest ; for nothing here doth itself 
rest ; but such things as please me for a while in 
some degree, vanish and flee as shadows from be- 
fore me. Lo, I come to thee, the eternal Being, 
the spring of life, the centre of rest, the stay of 
the creation, the fulness of all things. I join 
myself to thee ; with thee I will lead my life, and 
spend my days; with whom I am to dwell for- 
ever, expecting, when my little time is over, to be 
taken up into thine own eternity." 

But if you do not come to Christ, the Queen 
of Sheba will rise up in judgment against you ; 
she will come forth to condemn you. It has been 
said, that the time to die does not come until 
we have set in motion some agent which shall 
speak of us to other ages ; but 0, it is better than 
that not to die until we have had our names re- 
corded in the book of life. Mrs. Sigourney has 
beautifully summed up the whole, when she says, 
"There is much clamor in these days of prog- 
ress respecting a grant of new rights, or an ex- 
tension of privileges for our sex. A powerful 
moralist has said, that ' in contention for power, 
10 



146 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

both the philosophy and poetry of life are dropped 
and trodden down.' Would not a still greater 
loss accrue to domestic happiness, and to the in- 
terest of well-balanced society, should the innate 
delicacy and prerogative of woman, as woman, be 
forfeited or sacrificed ? 

" ' I have given her as a helpmeet,' said the 
voice that cannot err, when he spake unto Adam, 
in the cool of the day, amid the trees of paradise. 
Not as a toy, a clog, a prize-fighter. No ; a help- 
meet, such as was fitting for man to desire, and 
for woman to become. 

" Since the Creator has assigned different 
spheres of action for the different sexes, it is to be 
presumed, in his unerring wisdom, that there is 
work enough in each department to employ them, 
and that the faithful performance of that work 
will be for the benefit of both. If he has made 
one the priestess of the inner temple, committing 
to her charge its unrevealed sanctities, why should 
she seek to mingle in the warfare that may thun- 
der at its gates, or rock its turrets ? Need she be 
again tempted by pride or curiosity, or glowing 
words, to barter her own Eden ? 

" True nobility of woman is to keep her own 
sphere, and to adorn it, not like the comet, haunt- 
ing and perplexing other systems, but as the pure 
star, which is first to light the day, and last to 



QUEEN OF SHEBA. 147 

leave it. If she share not the fame of the ruler 
and the blood-shedder, her good works, such as 
' become those who profess godliness,' though they 
leave no deep 4 footprints on the sands of time/ 
may find record in the ' Lamb's book of life.' " 

0, yes, that is it, — to find record in the Lamb's 
book of life. Will the reader find such a record ? 
In Christ there is ample opportunity, a glorious 
privilege. 'Tis only, Believe and be saved ; look 
and live. 

"0, how unlike the complex works of man, 
Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan ! 
No meretricious graces to beguile, 
No clustering ornaments to cloy the pile ; 
From ostentation as from weakness free, 
It stands like the cerulean arch we see, 
Majestic in its own simplicity. 
Inscribed above the portal, from afar 
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, 
Legible only by the light they give, 
Stand the soul-quickening words, Believe and live. 
Too many, shocked at what should charm them most, 
Despise the plain direction, and are lost ; 
* Heaven on such terms ! ' they cry with proud disdain; 
' Incredible, impossible, and vain ! " 
Rebel, because 'tis easy to obey, 
And scorn, for its own sake, the gracious way." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE DISAPPOINTED ONE. 

ABIGAIL. 

There's hope for thee, poor erring one, 

With sin and sorrow cursed and crushed ; 
Through the thick darkness gleams the sun, 

"With pale, sad beauty flushed ; 
The lone wind sobbeth not so loud ; 

Heaven's breath is kissing flower and tree ; 
The blue sky bursts through yonder cloud : 

There's hope, poor soul, for thee. 

Now the name of the man was Nabal ; and the name of his wife Abigail ; 
and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful coun- 
tenance, but the man was churlish and evil in his doings 5 and he was 
of the house of Caleb. 1 Samuel, xxv. 3. 

/^siip'HERE is one class of women that makes 
/j irresistible demands upon our sympathies. 
\F_J It is a class that has always been numer- 
ous in the world, and will continue to be 
numerous, until the woes of intemperance shall 
be done away. That class is composed of the 

(148) 



ABIGAIL. 149 

great array of drunkards' wives, of which Abigail 
is a fair representative. It is indeed a sad sight 
to see a lovely, intelligent, refined, and gifted 
woman bound for life to a rough, coarse, brutal 
husband, who devotes his time to dissipation and 
violence. We have some gauge of the feelings 
of a man who, under the laws of ancient Rome, 
found himself chained to a dead corpse, which 
every day became more offensive ; but we have no 
gauge of the sorrow of her who is bound by mar- 
riage vows for life to a living mass of drunken- 
ness, a vice which includes every thing vile and 
repulsive, and which, like a corpse, becomes every 
day more offensive and hideous. 

Abigail was the wife of Nabal. She was doubt- 
less married to him in very early life, when he 
was fair to the eye and pleasant to the ear. The 
marriage was doubtless one of great joy, and the 
wealthy bridegroom and the beautiful bride en- 
tered upon their new relations with the brightest 
hopes of a happy life. But ere long, the young 
wife began to see a change in her husband. Now 
and then he would return from his journeys in a 
state of intoxication, and his formerly pleasant, 
agreeable intercourse with her was changed to 
coarse brutality. Reproaches, instead of compli- 
ments, were heaped upon her, and with woman's 
meek and quiet spirit, she lived in sorrow and 



150 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

regret. Too late to remedy the evil, she found she 
had united herself to a man whose mind was 
greatly inferior to her own, and with confidence 
in God, she endeavored to fulfil her contract, 
though he might be faithless to his. 

The circumstances under which Abigail is brought 
to our view are somewhat peculiar. David, who 
was arrayed against Saul, was in want ; and hear- 
ing that Nabal was a man of wealth, he sent to him 
a kind message, urging him to bestow of his prop- 
erty for the public good. The messengers reached 
•the house of the rich man, and told Nabal how 
David had guarded his flocks, and from what 
losses he had saved him, and then, in the name 
of their master, made their request. The rich 
man was in a state of miiid not remarkably 
adapted to induce him to comply with the request 
of David. With the greatest insolence, he said, 
" Who is David ? Who is the son of Jesse, that 
I should give him of my bread?" With indig- 
nant words and angry looks, he sent the messen- 
gers back to their master. When David heard all 
this, he was wroth, and arming himself and his 
warriors, prepared at once to pour out his ven- 
geance upon the head of the offender. In the 
mean while, intelligence of the affair came to the 
ears of Abigail. She was told by a servant what 
the messenger of David had requested, and the 



ABIGAIL. 151 

ground on which his claim had been based. Abi- 
gail was a wise woman. She knew something 
about David, and was well aware that he would 
not bear meekly the treatment of her husband. 
She expected he would soon be on his way to re- 
ward her lord according to his deed. To guard 
against this calamity, she took loaves of bread, corn, 
wine, and fruit, and with numerous servants hast- 
ened to meet David. She had not gone far ere 
her suspicions were confirmed, for she met David 
coming against her home. She alighted from the 
beast on which she rode, and fell down before the 
young man, and addressed him in the most touch- 
ing manner, assuring him that Nabal did not 
mean a wrong, and entreating him to accept the 
gift she brought. " Upon me, my lord," she said, 
" upon me let this iniquity be. Let not my lord 
regard this man of Belial, even Nabal ; for as his 
name is, so is he ; Nabal is his name, and folly is 
with him: but I, thine handmaid, saw not the 
young men of my lord, whom thou didst send. 
Now, therefore, my lord, as the Lord liveth, and 
as thy soul liveth, seeing the Lord hath withholden 
thee from coming to shed blood, and from aven- 
ging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine 
enemies, and those that seek evil to my lord, be 
as Nabal. And now this blessing which thine 
handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it 



152 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

be even given unto the young men that follow my 
lord. I pray thee forgive the trespass of thine 
handmaid ; for the Lord will certainly make my 
lord a sure house ; because my lord fighteth the 
battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found 
in thee all thy days. Yet a man is risen to pur- 
sue thee, and to seek thy soul : but the soul of 
my lord shall be bound up in the bundle of life 
with the Lord thy God ; and the souls of thine 
enemies, them shall he sling out as from the mid- 
dle of a sling. And it shall come to pass, when 
the Lord shall have done to my lord according to 
all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, 
and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel, 
that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence 
of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed 
blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged 
himself ; but when the Lord shall have dealt well 
with my lord, then remember thine handmaid." 

This whole address was most adroitly made, and 
Abigail proved herself to be a most successful 
pleader. The spectacle there in the way is a 
most touching one, and we cannot help joining in 
the wonder expressed by a thrilling writer, who 
says, " The whole of this scene is so vividly de- 
scribed in holy writ, that it is rather remarkable 
that it should never have been taken as the sub- 
ject of a picture by some of the many illustrators 



ABIGAIL. 153 

of Sciipture. A rocky defile of Carmel, winding 
round the side of a hill, down which the four 
hundred armed followers of David, in their glit- 
tering armor, might be scattered in and out of the 
rocks, except the few which, close beside their 
leader and the kneeling Abigail, marked the fore- 
ground ; the servants and led asses of the wife 
of Nabal gracefully grouped on the opposite side 
of the armed men, forming a beautiful contrast, 
by their peaceful habiliments and alarmed looks, 
to the fierce and eager countenances of the war- 
riors. The extreme beauty of Abigail ; the plead- 
ing look and posture of the suppliant blending 
with the modest dignity of the woman ; the superb 
countenance and form of the still youthful David, 
varying from indignation to softening admiration, 
— all might form a combination not unworthy of 
first rate talent in an artist, more especially when 
that artist may be found at this very day amid the 
ranks of Israel." 

David took the gifts and went back, while Abi- 
gail returned to her intemperate husband, who 
died about ten days afterwards. David heard of 
his death, and soon sent for Abigail to come and 
be his wife ; and she lived with him a long time. 

I present Abigail as a specimen of the drunk- 
ard's wife ; and to that very unfortunate class of 
our suffering sisters I wish here to call your at- 
tention. 



154 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

Intemperance, though not so common as it was 
years ago, is yet frequent. Comparing the pop- 
ulation of our country with what it was a century 
since, intemperance * is certainly lessened ; but 
though lessened, it has not yet become extinct. 
In the city of Boston are thousands of places 
where intoxicating drinks are sold; in other 
cities are hundreds of places where bodies and 
souls are ruined ; and away out in society are 
homes desolated, hearts saddened, characters lost, 
and souls ruined, by this dreadful poison. The 
drunkard himself is a sorrowful personage, with 
his bloated face, bloodshot eye, and frenzied heart. 
He presents us with a fair specimen of a demon 
let loose from the pit, to make misery among the 
homes of earth. But he is not the greatest suf- 
ferer. His children, half clad, half educated, 
half fed, half cultivated, and cast out of house 
and home, suffer more than he. They bear a sor- 
row of which he knows nothing. But they even, 
are not the greatest sufferers by his intemperance. 
They outgrow his violence, and leave the parental 
roof, and live among strangers ; they soon become 
independent of his control, and find homes of 
their own. But the pale, shrinking wife is bound 
to that lump of clay, tied by law to that mass of 
corruption, unable to outgrow, outlive, or get be- 
yond his pestiferous breath, his baneful influence. 



ABIGAIL. 155 

For better or for worse she took him, and it has 
been all for worse, as, day and night, she has lived 
with one hope — the hope to die. In speaking 
upon the case of the drunkard's wife, we will 
notice, — 

1. Her disappointment. She did not marry a 
drunkard; or, if she did, she hoped she could 
soon reform him. She went to the altar with a 
bright and glorious hope. The vision of a pleas- 
ant home, a kind husband, a long and lovely life, 
was before her. Not a cloud hovered over her 
marriage scene. The sun was bright, and the sky 
was clear. For a while after marriage, the scene 
of happiness continues ; the bride's dream is real- 
ized, and she fondly hopes it will always continue. 
But one night her husband comes home from his 
store or his counting, house in a state of mind for 
which she cannot account. His breath, not balmy, 
but hot and sulphureous, tells the whole. She 
gently chides him, and he promises never to drink 
again. Soon he comes home again in a worse 
state than before. His step now staggers, and his 
voice is unsteady. His mutterings are strange, 
and his words incoherent. He is met with a flood 
of tears, amid the fall of which he goes to sleep. 
A settlement is effected on the morrow, and there 
is sunshine in that home again. A few nights 
pass, and a drunken man is brought home to that 



156 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

house, and he is thrown upon the bed by his boon 
fellows, who leave him there to curse his weeping 
wife. This time a reconciliation is not so easy. 
Indeed, he laughs at his companion, and when she 
falls upon his neck with tears and remonstrances, 
he casts her away, and flings her from him. Day 
by day she hopes it will be better ; but it grows 
worse and worse until her hopes are all blasted, 
and her fond anticipations are all dead. Tell me, 
where on earth is a disappointment like this ? 
Where can you find, in all the griefs to which our 
world is subject, anguish more intense ? Once a 
star of hope hovered over her, but it has disap- 
peared ; once music, mirth, and pleasure sur- 
rounded her, but all have changed ; and she lives, 
chained by her marriage covenant to a man whose 
brutal intemperance and whose increasing crimes 
make him a burden not easily to be borne. You 
know how sad you feel when disappointed in some 
trivial pleasure of a single day — what regret a 
single hour of disappointment sometimes causes. 
But here is a woman who is disappointed for life ; 
she married a man, and he has changed into a 
brute ; the sunlight on his countenance is gone ; 
the cheerful tones of his voice are gone ; the 
hopes, prospects, blessings which she dreamed of 
are all gone. Her husband is a drunkard : she is 
a drunkard's wife. 



ABIGAIL. 157 

2. Consider her degradation. Woman has to a 
far greater extent than man a sense of what is 
fitting and proper. Her senses are all acute on 
the customs, forms, and habits of civilization. In 
her home, in her family, and especially in her 
husband, does she wish to have every thing right. 
There is an honest pride which every true woman 
feels in her husband, if he is a good man ; and the 
better he prospers, the happier she feels. She is 
tender of his reputation, careful of his honor, and 
watchful of his interest. If there should come 
some spot upon his fame, it would be to her a 
greater source of grief than to him, and the iron 
would sink deeper far into her soul than into his. 
When a young woman unites herself in marriage 
to one of the opposite sex, she concludes he will 
be highly prospered in the world, or at least will 
maintain a respectable reputation ; and if he be- 
comes a drunkard, there is not only the keen 
disappointment, but the crushing degradation. 
Wherever that woman goes, she goes as a drunk- 
ard's wife. At church, at home, on the street, 
she bears ever with her the mark of the drunk- 
ard's family. It is no sin of hers, and others may 
forget it all. The great world outside may re- 
spect her as much, nay, more, than if she was a 
good man's wife ; but she will not forget it. 
Wherever she goes, she will remember it, and feel 



158 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S ^FRIEND. 

her degradation. Her blasted hopes, her thin- 
clad children, her desolated home, her brutal, 
intoxicated husband, she will compare with the 
hopes, children, homes, and husbands of others 
who started with her in the matrimonial race, but 
who have been more prosperous and fortunate. 
And this feeling of degradation is heightened by 
the contrast. Her children go to school in poor 
and uncomely garb ; theirs in well-prepared robes ; 
her children have few books, few attentions at 
home, few means of improvement ; theirs are sur- 
rounded with all the little luxuries of childhood. 
Every year the difference between their firesides 
and homes becomes greater ; intemperance fixes a 
greater gulf between the sober and the dissipated, 
and the poor wife and mother feels the load of 
degradation growing heavier and heavier every 
year. There may be something of pride in that 
woman's feelings, but it is an honest, commenda- 
ble pride. Every true woman will love to see her 
own family well provided for ; and she must be 
very far lost to all the feelings of a parent, if the 
intemperance of her hu'sband does not often cause 
her to wish the earth would open and swallow her 
up. A woman is not to blame for the intemper- 
ance of her husband, but she cannot help feeling 
it. She may be as sinless in the matter as an 
angel from heaven, but she cannot help being 



ABIGAIL. 159 

crushed by the degradation of her lot. Her 
dreary home, her squalid children, her bloated 
husband, her comfortless condition, speak to her 
daily of her sad fate. The more she thinks, the 
longer she lives, the more the evil grows, until 
usually she gives way to her fate, hides from the 
world, and settles down in calm, uncomplaining 
despair. 

3. Consider the sufferings of a drunkard's wife. 
Disappointment and degradation are not all. The 
drunkard's wife has a life of suffering and sorrow. 
You have heard of some women who have suf- 
fered at the stake ; they rejoiced in the glorious 
name of martyrs. But the wife of a drunkard is 
a life-long martyr. Every day she lives, she en- 
dures a crucifixion of .all the tenderest and gen- 
tlest feelings of her nature. There is generally 
poverty in the drunkard's house. God has coupled 
poverty and dissipation together, and written 
every where, " The drunkard shall come to pov- 
erty." And this poverty falls most heavily upon 
the wife. She has most to do with the ragged 
clothes of the children, with the scanty meal, with 
the exhausted wood pile, with all the fixtures and 
conveniences of the house. Her brain is taxed, 
her frame is wearied, in providing for the house- 
hold. Work, care, and grief are mingled at her 
board. To poverty follows cruel treatment. A 



160 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

drunkard often has the heart of a fiend. He loses 
his manhood while under the effects of intemper- 
ance, and becomes a brute. See how his children 
are dashed from him ; see the blows which fall 
upon the wounded form of the shrinking wife. 
Of all the women on earth, there is no one who 
suffers so much from brutal treatment as she 
who is bound to a drunkard. And yet how often 
is it that the wife, uncomplaining, will follow that 
husband long after he has deserted her and cast 
her off — follow him, to render him all the assist- 
ance in her power, and save him, if possible, from 
complete destruction ! If others blame him, she 
pleads for him ; if others cast him off, she gives 
him her last cent ; if others cast him into prison, 
she kneels at the feet of mercy, to pray for his 
liberation. Her cheeks are furrowed with tears ; 
her very heart is wrinkled with grief; the hair on 
her head is gray prematurely ; and yet she still 
clings to the poor creature who has so shamefully 
deceived her, and so cruelly cast her off. 

In view of these facts, the community is bound 
to do two things. 1. To respect the drunkard's 
wife. She is sometimes treated as if she was re- 
sponsible for the vileness of her husband. The 
cold, unfeeling finger of society is sometimes 
pointed at her in derision ; wealth and fashion 
look down with contempt upon her poverty, and 



ABIGAIL. 161 

a double cup of sorrow is put to her lips. Is 
this just ? Is this humane ? Every manly prin- 
ciple, every womanly feeling, every Christian sym- 
pathy, answers, " No." If on earth is a woman 
who should be respected, for whom religion should 
make the most kind provision, upon whom Chris- 
tian charity should look with the utmost tender- 
ness, whose path through life should be bright- 
ened by kind and tender regard, — that woman is 
the drunkard's wife. Of all others, she has the 
largest claim upon our regard and esteem, and 
the very sorrow which she suffers at home should 
lead us to bless her more sincerely when abroad. 

It was this class of women to whom Christ de- 
voted much of his attention while he was on 
earth ; and if we would imitate his example, we 
shall bestow our sympathy and generous regard 
on those who have been ruined by intemperate 
companions. 

2. But sympathy will do little good without 
material aid. And it is not so much money, 
food, and clothing, that the wife of the drunk- 
ard wants. She wants society to throw its arms 
around her husband, to lead him back from 
the fatal path of ruin, to take out of his way the 
dreadful temptation which he has found himself 
unable to resist, to shut up the dens of crime and 
infamy which now draw him in — those traps of 
11 



162 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

death, those mines of hell, where fortunes are 
lost, bodies destroyed, and souls ruined. The 
wife of a drunkard, one who has felt and who 
knows the terrible sorrows of intemperance, while 
the recently made prohibitory law was pending in 
the legislature, wrote a letter to one of the mem- 
bers, urging him to do all he could to make a 
statute which would shut up the dens of intem- 
perance. " Some have endeavored, but vainly, to 
portray," she says, " to the audience, the feelings 
of a drunkard's wife. I am not only a drunkard's 
wife, but the child of a drunkard ; and let me tell 
you from experience, that it is utterly impossible 
for language to express or convey to the mind of 
the inexperienced the sorrows of . a drunkard's 
wife. I ask, then, protection from the Massachu- 
setts legislature. I speak the*voice of thousands 
of my sex. We say, in the name of Heaven, pro- 
tect our darling children from the vice that has 
ruined their fathers, and destroyed the happiness 
of their mothers. If you had the immortal Web- 
ster pleading our cause from Monday morning 
until Saturday night, he could not give you the 
most faint idea of the sorrows we endure. Ah, 
no. Neither could you, were your tongues 
touched with a live coal from off the altar of your 
God, convey to the heart of one who does not 
suffer as we suffer the heart-breaking, soul-sicken- 
ing feelings we endure. Who, then, have a bet- 



ABIGAIL. 163 

ter right to ask protection from the legislature 
than we ? 

" Four years ago, my husband became a mem- 
ber of a Christian church. For eighteen months 
he was an exemplary Christian, a reformed man 
in every sense of the word. Meeting with some 
slight trouble that affected his mind, the rumseller, 
ever ready to take advantage of such circum- 
stances, placed the tempter in his way. He took 
the first glass, and fell ! I wish I could convey the 
feelings of a drunkard's wife under circumstances 
like these. On his knees, in the morning, invok- 
ing Heaven's blessing upon his family — the hus- 
band, the father, yea, and the Christian ; at three 
o'clock, a 'worse than beast — the victim of the 
rum traffic. In the name of Heaven, who should 
better claim protection from the state ? 

" We ask the legislature to deliver us, body and 
soul, from the charities of the rumseller, by a 
stringent prohibitory law. My husband, who has 
been absent from his home five months, and is 
endeavoring, with the help of God, to throw off 
again his associates, and again become a useful 
member of society, asks for your protection. My 
two sons and four helpless daughters ask your 
protection. Father in heaven, hasten the happy 
time when we shall again be united in the bonds 
of affection; when the husband shall have no 



164 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

temptation placed in his way, and mothers and 
children weep no more forever over the downfall 
of the husband and father. We ask, again, pro- 
tection from the commonwealth." 

And could he have the heart of a man who 
should rise up and say that this wife and mother 
should not have the protection of law ? that some 
man should be licensed to sell him the poison 
which is to do the work of ruin, and drag him 
down from his family altar and his domestic joys, 
again to wallow in the mire and bite the dust in 
wretchedness and crime ? It is a demonstrated 
fact, that intemperance cannot be driven from the 
world by easy means. Moral suasion has been 
tried, and tried in vain ; argument has been used, 
but used to no purpose. The traffic in intoxicat- 
ing drinks must be made a crime ; the trafficker 
must be branded as a criminal. While the traffic 
in rum is treated as the traffic in other articles, the 
ruin will goon. The time must come, — it will 
come, — when he who sells must do it at the sac- 
rifice of standing among respectable men ; and if 
the gallows is needed to stop the infernal business, 
I know of no more honest and wholesome purpose 
to which that horrid instrument can be put. If 
a man commits one murder, you hang him; but 
here are men who sell a chemical compound, the 
ingredients of which are poisonous to the body 



ABIGAIL. 165 

and maddening to the brain, by which they mur- 
der hundreds every year, and yet society lets them 
live, like ulcers on its lungs, like cancers on its 
breast. There must be prohibition ; and when a 
law can be so framed as to meet all the emergen- 
cies of the case, the wife of the drunkard has 
reason for hope. Speaking of a sister state, Con- 
necticut, and contrasting it with New York, while 
on a visit to the latter state, his excellency, Gov- 
ernor Dutton, bears this striking testimony to 
prohibitory law : " Not a grog shop, so called, is 
to be found in the State of Connecticut since the 
new law came into force. No matter what the 
local balance of interest in any town, city, or 
spot in the state, the law was so framed that it 
should operate in all and each. I do not mean 
that there are not a few dark spots, where, by 
falsehood and secrecy, evasion may be managed ; 
but, in a word, the traffic is suspended. The 
effects are all that could be wished. I have not 
seen a drunkard in the streets since the first of 
August. I was not here ten minutes till I saw a 
man not able to walk alone. Such is the contrast 
between a state with and one without a Maine 
law. The statistics of crime have been materially 
diminished ; the crimes which directly result from 
rum have fallen away fully half. There are hun- 
dreds, I have no doubt, the heads of families, 



166 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

who in most inclement weather are well supplied 
with comforts, who, but for our law, would be 
destitute. Such are the particular effects ; the 
general effect is a sober, calm, quiet air of secu- 
rity pervading the whole community, which is 
delightful to behold and enjoy." 

The world is beginning to speak hopefully to 
the drunkard's wife ; ay, and to the drunkard, 
himself. If these sinks of intemperance on every 
corner could be shut up, we might hope to wel- 
come in the church, to the communion table, 
some who are now rolling in sin, and cursing the 
God who made them. There is hope for Nabal, 
as well as Abigail ; for the degraded drunkard, as 
well as for his suffering wife. Christian philan- 
thropy may now go to the drunkard, and lift him 
up, and say to him, — 



" There is hope for thee, poor erring heart, 

All torn, and bleeding, and unblest ; 
There are balm leaves t' anoint the part 

That festers in thy breast ; 
There are crutches for thy trembling limbs, 

Till they are firm, and strong, and free ; 
There are holy thoughts afid prayerful hymns 

Breathed forth, poor heart, for thee." 



Would to God we might arouse the church to 
feel and pray for the drunkard, that we might 
thus bless his wife and honor God. " There is 



ABIGAIL. 167 

hope for thee." That saying will cheer him. We 
have long been preaching that there is no hope 
for drunkards — they are lost. Under such doc- 
trine, we have seen father, brothers, and sons 
hurried down to woe. But there is hope for these. 
It comes welling from the cross of Christ ; it lin- 
gers and plays like sunlight on the pages of the 
word of God ; it whispers in the prayers of Chris- 
tians, and entwines around the willing forms of 
men, a very messenger of life to all. 

" Yes, there is hope for thee, poor soul, 

All wild and wayward as thou wast ; 
So let thy future moments toll 

The death knell of the past. 
There are eyes that strain to see thee start, 

And bosoms panting like a sea ; 
Press onward, then, poor sorrowing heart, 

For there is hope for thee." 



CHAPTEE IX. 

THE UK-FAITHFUL WOMAN. 

DELILAH. 

Poison drops of care and sorrow, 

Bitter poison drops are they, 
Weaving for the coming morrow 

Sad memorials of to-day. 

He loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. 
Judges, xvi. 4. 

/^jte^HE history of Samson is a source of in- 
i\ % terest to all young people. His great 
\£^^ strength, his heroic achievements, his pe- 
culiar vicissitudes, make his case one of 
more than ordinary moment among those who 
read the Bible mostly for its stirring narratives, 
or for its delineations of character. Though not 
of the highest religious consequence, it is not en- 
tirely destitute of spiritual instruction ; and we 
may be able to draw from it some useful lessons. 

Samson was a Danite. He was born in Zorah, 
and was the son of Manoah. At the time of his 

(168) 



DELILAH. 169 

appearance upon the stage of life, the children of 
Israel were in captivity. For their sins, God had 
given them into the hands of the Philistines, who 
oppressed them. When the young man arrived 
at mature years, he went to Timnath, and saw a 
Philistine woman, on whom he set his affections. 
Unlike the youth of our times, who marry with- 
out advice, he went to his parents, who accompa- 
nied him to Timnath, where the preliminaries 
were settled. On the way, as Samson journeyed 
with his parents, a lion, wild and roaring, came 
against him. But unaffrighted, the giant seized 
him by the jaws, and rent him asunder as he 
would have rent a kid. Some time after, on an- 
other journey to Timnath, he found the carcass 
of the lion filled with honey, a swarm of bees 
having taken possession of it. After his marriage, 
he said to the assembly, most of whom were Phi- 
listines, " I will give you a riddle, and you shall 
have seven days to find it out. If you succeed, I 
will give you thirty sheets and thirty changes of 
garments ; if not, you shall give me the same 
number of sheets and garments." They accepted 
the challenge, and took up the bet. The riddle 
was, " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out 
of the strong came forth sweetness." Day after 
day, the men of Timnath puzzled themselves on 
this riddle in vain. Finding they were about to 



170 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

lose, they went to Samson's wife, and threatened 
to burn her, and her father's house, if she did not 
coax the secret out of her husband. She yielded 
to their persuasions, and pleaded with him ; and 
though he had concealed it from all else, he told 
it to her. So, when the time was up, the Philis- 
tines had the key to the riddle, and said to Sam- 
son, " What is sweeter than honey, and what is 
stronger than the lion ? " Samson knew at once 
that they had been at work with his wife, and be- 
came enraged ; and after slaying thirty men, he 
went to his own home, leaving his wife with her 
friends. She was soon married again, the deser- 
tion of her husband not seeming to produce any 
serious impression on her mind. A while after, 
the heart of Samson relented, and he went for 
her ; but her father refused to give her up, and 
wished him to take her younger sister, who was 
more beautiful. This again enraged Samson, who 
caught three hundred foxes, and tying firebrands 
to their tails, set them loose among the grain of 
the Philistines, and the fire, spreading in all direc- 
tions, produced a general calamity. On his re- 
turn home,, the Philistines went after him, and as 
his nation was subject to the Philistines, he was 
surrendered. When the Philistines thought they 
had secured him, he burst the cords, and seizing 
a jaw bone, slew a thousand of them. For these 



DELILAH. 171 

heroic deeds he was made judge, and reigned 
many years. But his life was not to end peaceably 
and quietly. Mighty deeds were yet before him, 
and God's mighty purpose he was yet to perform. 
It is related of him, that on one occasion he went 
to Gaza, and the people all turned out to arrest 
him ; but as it was night, they concluded to wait 
till morning. The city was well guarded, and 
the escape of the giant was deemed impossible. 
But in the night, the strong man arose, and un- 
hanging the gates, tore up the posts, and throwing 
them, bars and- all, upon his shoulders, marched 
up to a high hill, and cast them down there, and 
went his way. 

But treachery was to accomplish what force 
could not. In the valley of Sorek lived Delilah, 
a Philistine maiden, to whom Samson became at- 
tached, and as many suppose, married her. It is 
imagined by some that Delilah was a very wicked 
woman ; that her character was vile, and her life 
shameful. But of this we have no proof, and it 
is probable that her character was good, and her 
reputation and connection respectable. Be that 
as it may, the Philistines selected her as the in- 
strument for the accomplishment of their revenge. 
They bribed her to find out wherein the great 
strength of Samson lay, and she accepted the 
bribe. What her motive was we cannot tell. It 



172 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

may be that love of country rose above love to 
her husband, and she sacrificed him to the public 
good. We can easily imagine that a strong- 
minded woman could cast off the devotion to her 
wedded partner, for the sake of serving the na- 
tion, for whom 'she entertained the highest regard. 
This was to some extent the case with Madame 
Roland, the strong-hearted woman of the French 
revolution, who, when the wild wail of her nation 
was heard, threw off all the restraints and duties 
of home, trampled on her conjugal relations, and 
rushed into the din and strife of the period of 
blood. But many think it more likely that Deli- 
lah acted without any such motive. She was not, 
probably, aware of the extent of the injury she 
was doing to Samson, for most likely the Philis- 
tines informed her that they would not harm him, 
but would soon restore him. Or she may have 
been bribed to betray her lover, and for gold have 
sacrificed him. But whatever her motive was, 
she proceeded very adroitly. As she lay upon his 
bosom, she said, " Tell me wherein your great 
strength lieth, and how it may be taken away." 
It seems Samson could not trust her. He told 
her a lie, and she repeated it to his enemies. " If 
they bind me with seven green withs that have 
never been dried, I shall become as weak as any 
other man," said he. So she obtained the green 



DELILAH. 173 

withs, and while he slept, she bound him fast. 
When she deemed him perfectly secure, she awoke 
him with the cry, " The Philistines be upon thee, 
Samson." He awoke, and tore the withs from 
him, and cast them away as if they had been a 
thread of tow, and laughed at Delilah and the 
discomfited Philistines, who stood by perfectly 
amazed. Soon the quarrel was settled, and the 
feud reconciled ; and Delilah again besought 
Samson to tell her wherein his strength consisted. 
Again he deceived her by saying that, if he was 
bound with new ropes that had never been used, 
he should be as weak as other men. So, as he 
slept, she bound him with new ropes ; but when 
his enemies came, he tore the ropes asunder, and 
again Delilah was defeated in her purpose. 

But she was not discouraged. The love or the 
hate of a woman never tires. She pleaded with 
the man again, and again he lied to her, by saying 
that if his hair was braided and pinned, he should 
become weak. Delilah braided and pinned his 
hair, but his giant strength remained. It would 
seem that by this time Samson might have learned 
a lesson of experience from his alliance with " the 
charmer ; " but love is blind, and cannot often see 
what is before it. So he reconciled matters with 
Delilah, took her again to his bosom, committed 
himself to her keeping, and cradled her traitorous 



174 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

head upon his manly breast. One day, as thus 
she reposed, she said, " Now, Samson, how canst 
thou say that thou dost love me, when three times 
thou hast deceived me ? I have asked a question, 
and thou hast answered it falsely." So she 
pressed him ; promised, probably, as women and 
men sometimes do, never to tell of it ; urged him 
by his love to her to tell wherein his strength con- 
sisted. Overcome, deceived, and cheated by her, 
he told her all ; and we soon find him a fettered 
captive in the prison house of Gaza, shorn of his 
strength, and robbed of his power. What the 
feelings of Delilah were, when she saw the results 
of her duplicity, we are not told ; but if she had 
a human heart, she must have regretted her vile- 
ness and trickery. Milton sketches her going to 
the prison of Samson, " bedecked, ornate, and 
gay," and saying,— 

" With doubtful feet and wavering resolutions, 
I come, still dreading thy displeasure, Samson, 
Which to have merited, without excuse, 
I cannot but acknowledge ; * * * 
* * # But conjugal affection, 
Prevailing over fear and timorous doubt, 
Hath led me on, desirous to behold 
Once more thy face." 

To which Samson replies, — 



DELILAH. 175 

" Out, out, hyena : these are thy wonted arts, 
And arts of every woman false like thee, 
To break all faith, deceive, betray, 
Then, as repentant, to submit, beseech, 
And reconcilement move, with feigned remorse." 

Thus Delilah at the prison pleads, and thus 
Samson answers, until she retires, saying, — 

" I see thou art implacable ; more deaf 
To prayers than winds and seas ; yet winds and seas 
Are reconciled at length, and sea to shore ; 
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages, 
Eternal tempest, never to be calmed." 

Then she breaks forth into triumph, declares 
that she will no longer stand suing at his dun- 
geon, but she will go to Gath and Ekron, where 
her name shall be recorded among the famous 
women of the times, and " sung at solemn festi- 
vals," as one who, to " save her country from a 
fierce destroyer," rose above " the faith of wed- 
lock bonds." For this fidelity to country, at the 
expense of infidelity to her husband, she would 
thus receive a tomb 

" With odors visited and annual flowers. " 

Samson finds her gone without regret, and as 
he turns into the loneliness of his prison, he ex- 
claims, — 



176 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

" So let her go ; God sent her to deceive me, 
And aggravate my folly, who committed 
To such a viper his most sacred trust 
Of secrecy, my safety and my life." 

This narrative, over which we are obliged to 
pass hastily, teaches us several things which we 
ought to learn early in life. And the first thing 
is, the influence which an irreligious husband or 
wife may have upon the religious partner of wed- 
ded life. I am not prepared to take the ground 
that in no case a Christian should wed one who 
has no hope in Christ ; nor am I prepared to af- 
firm that husbands and wives who are separated 
by religious differences do not often live happily 
together. But while it is true that conjugal hap- 
piness is found in families where meet the wide 
extremes of infidelity and piety, it is also true 
that much domestic unhappiness often comes from 
variance on religious topics. Samson belonged to 
a nation that loved and served God ; a nation that, 
from the days of Sarah and Rebekah, had boasted ' 
of its female beauty ; a nation elevated in a social 
scale far above the Philistine tribes. He might 
have married well among his own people, and 
have been happy with a maiden of his own kin. 
But he chose a woman who worshipped Dagon ; 
whose natural sympathies were with another na- 
tion and another religion ; whose whole soul rose 



DELILAH. 177 

up against the faith of the Hebrew prophets and 
priests. The result was, a life of sorrow, and 
a death of violence. Nor is the case of Samson 
a solitary one. For centuries, the evils of in- 
termarriages between Protestants and Catholics 
have been apparent in Europe. Misery and 
wretchedness have followed all such connections, 
and the Inquisition has shed rivers of blood as a 
consequence. In Papal countries, the confessional 
is used for extorting from wives the secrets of 
their husbands, and many a woman has delivered 
up her husband to the most dreadful death at the 
behests of a cruel priest. All other things being 
equal, parties about entering the marriage rela- 
tion should select those with whom they can agree 
in religious opinions ; but when once the relation 
has been formed between parties thus differing, 
the greatest care should be used lest the stronger 
deny the religious rights of the weaker, and thus 
an irreparable injury be done to the consciences 
of both. 

We have also in this narrative a conflict of du- 
ties ; we see patriotism struggling with conjugal 
affection. In every person's life there will often 
be seeming, not real, conflicts of duty. Delilah 
was the wife of Samson, i. e., we have no evidence 
to the contrary. She was bound to sympathize 
with him in his sorrows, to share his griefs, to 
12 



178 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

minister to his wants, and be to him a kind and 
constant helper. She was also a woman of Phi- 
listia, and loved her nation. She was a patriotic 
woman, and had often gone out to battle with the 
warriors of Ekron and Gath. She had duties to 
her husband, and she also had duties to her na- 
tion. But how could she act ? Her husband was 
the enemy of her nation, and she must betray one 
or the other. Here the claims of her nation and 
the claims of her husband came in conflict. We 
universally condemn Delilah, but are we right in 
so doing ? We condemn her as a vile woman, 
who trampled on all the dictates of .nature, and 
deserted a husband who was true and kind. But 
is this a just view ? Let us suppose a case. In , 
the early history of our nation, in the midst of 
her struggle for freedom, a man high in office 
proved traitor, and meditated an act which, if 
carried into effect, would have severely injured 
the cause of America, and perhaps imperilled all 
the interests of a great and free people. Now, 
suppose the wife of Benedict Arnold had some 
day found papers in her house which unfolded to 
her the part her husband was to act, and the 
wrong he meditated ; suppose she had become 
fully convinced that he was an infamous traitor, 
and knew that unless his plans were known and 
thwarted, the rebel army would be cut to pieces 



DELILAH. 179 

by the royal forces, and the great cause itself be 
lost, through rash treason : suppose she had risen 
above the tie which bound her to her husband, 
and disregarding all the links which endeared her 
to her false and wicked partner, had gone on foot 
many a weary mile, through summer's heat or 
winter's cold, and laid at the feet of Washington 
the evidences of treason which she had discovered, 
and with tears of grief given evidence which 
would have convicted the traitor; what would 
posterity have said of her ? Why, a monument 
high as the clouds would be erected to her mem- 
ory ; a grateful nation would cover the shaft with 
votive offerings ; the world would point to it as 
the memento of one of the noblest women of the 
world, and poetry and praise, eloquence and song, 
would make her deed immortal. 

Well, here was Delilah. She had married Sam- 
son, but we do not suppose her conjugal love had 
destroyed her patriotism. Samson became the 
enemy of her nation, and endeavored to destroy 
it ; the people he had slain by thousands ; the 
noblest and bravest had fallen by his hand. He 
had caught foxes, and tied firebrands to their tails, 
and set them loose in the fields of the Philistines, 
consuming their grain and harvests. And shall 
she be judged harshly, if she threw off her devo- 
tion to her husband in her love of country ? She 



180 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

is not the first nor the last woman who has sacri- 
ficed family and friends to native land. 

But while these conflicts of duty may not arise 
in our case, other conflicts may. It is not sel- 
dom that conjugal love crosses the track of duty 
to God. The wife is required to give up the just 
and sacred exercise of her religious rights, to 
please the prejudices and passions of a wicked, 
unbelieving husband. It is a woman's duty to 
obey her husband ; she is not a good wife who 
does not fully recognize this principle, which lies 
at the basis of all domestic felicity. It is also her 
duty to obey her God ; and where the command 
of God and the command of her husband come 
into collision, we hesitate not to counsel disobe- 
dience to man, and obedience to God. In all 
matters of conscience, the woman has a right to 
her own opinions, and she should never relinquish 
the privilege of worshipping God according to 
the dictates of her own heart, and the demands 
of her Maker. The woman is bound to assist her 
husband in every laudable undertaking, but she 
is not bound to assist him in doing wrong ; she is 
not bound to assist him in stealing, in cheating, 
in forging, in selling rum, or doing any other 
wicked thing. In all the arrangements of the 
household, in all the domestic minutise, in every 
thing which she can do, and not violate her duty 



DELILAH. 181 

to God, she is bound to do as he commands. 
This is the statute law of God, and cannot be dis- 
regarded without peril. But when he touches 
her duty to God, when he crushes her conscience, 
she is bound to disobey. A man has a right to 
say that his wife shall not leave her family, neg- 
lect her duties, to attend public religious service, 
but he has no right to say she shall not worship 
God ; he has a right to order the arrangement of 
his household, but he has no right to interfere 
with the full and free exercise of her religious 
emotions. The command of God rises above his, 
and if submission to both is incompatible, she 
must disobey him, and obey God. 

We have also in this case a remarkable illustra- 
tion of the influence of woman. This Delilah 
deceived Samson over and over again. She gave 
him full proof of her infidelity, but when her soft 
arms were about his neck, and her musical voice 
was falling on his ear, he could not resist her, but 
told her all. And every woman will have more 
or less influence for good or evil over her husband. 
They may both be unaware of it, but if her course 
is right, she will be able to move him as she will. 
Few men like to be driven, but few there are who 
cannot be drawn, by a true and devoted wife, to 
deeds of the highest excellence. It is said that, 
not long since, General Samuel Houston, the hero 



182 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

of San Jacinto, was in one of our Atlantic cities, 
and having an evening when he was not specially- 
engaged, he was invited to attend a popular place 
of amusement. He politely declined. Upon be- 
ing pressed for the cause of his refusing to accom- 
pany his friend, he replied, in substance, as follows : 
" You are doubtless aware that a portion of my 
life was clouded by an intense devotion to most of 
the customs and fashions of society, and that, in 
consequence, I became degraded, and shunned 
by the wise and the good. My humiliation was 
the greater, because I had formerly stood well in 
the esteem of my fellow-citizens. My downfall 
was owing to the evil ways of society, but still it 
was my own fault. In this condition, she who is 
now my wife, awoke a desire for reform ; she in- 
spired me, she guided me, she aided me, and to 
her kind and unwearied efforts is due my redemp- 
tion from the thraldom of evil habits, and my res- 
toration to the respect of mankind. Yes, sir, 
humanly speaking, I owe to her all I am, or that 
I hope to be, in time and eternity. She is a pray- 
ing woman, a member of a Christian church. 
Some time ago, I resolved, by the help of God, 
never to perform an act having any moral bearing 
which would not be approved by my good wife. 
I know she disapproves of this species of amuse- 
ment, and would wish me not to attend, because 



DELILAH. 183 

its tendencies are evil, and it is unnecessary ; and 
I agree with her in opinion. You will, therefore, 
I trust, allow that I have reasons, which should- 
have weight with any true man, for not accepting 
your invitation." 

It is woman's mission to be true and faithful, 
kind and loving ; and herein she gains her noblest 
power over her male companion. Ledyard, who 
travelled much, and who saw much of human 
nature in its varied shapes, remarks, " Women do 
not hesitate, like men, to perform a hospitable or 
generous action ; not haughty, nor arrogant, nor 
supercilious, but full of courtesy, and fond of 
society ; industrious, economical, ingenious, more 
liable in general to err than man, but in general 
also more virtuous, and performing more good 
actions than he. I never addressed myself in the 
language of decency and friendship to a woman, 
whether civilized or savage, without receiving a 
friendly answer. With man, it has often been 
otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains 
of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, 
frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, un- 
principled Eussia, and the wide-spread regions of 
the wandering Tartar, hungry, dry, cold, wet, or 
sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uni- 
formly so ; and to add to this virtue, so worthy of 
the appellation of benevolence, these actions have 



184 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

been performed in so free and kind a manner, that, 
if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and if 
hungry, I ate the coarse morsel, with a double 
relish." 

And she should be careful of this influence. If 
a wife loses the affection of her husband, and 
with it her influence over him, she has made a 
shipwreck of home. The influence of woman 
should be used to make home happy. How 
vivid, and how true to life, is that picture which 
some one has drawn of the fashionable woman 
of our times! "Look," he says, "at that fine 
mansion where she dwells ; thousands have been 
lavished on these imposing walls, long colonnades, 
and high, arched windows ; and now and then 
you obtain a glimpse of costly hangings, rich car- 
pets, and tall mirrors, which dazzle with their 
magnificence. Often you pause a moment, and 
look wistfully in through the half-closed blinds, 
and murmur to yourself, as you pass on, 'I 
should think the possessor of all this might enjoy 
life.' 

" But you are sadly mistaken. The angel of 
peace never folds her white wings by that fireside ; 
the gentle spirit of content never sheds her holy 
influence there. The master of the mansion, 
though yet in his prime, seems prematurely old ; 
there is an expression of habitual suffering around 



DELILAH. 185 

his firmly-compressed lips, and his broad brow 
bears many a trace of care. Ah, there is a vul- 
ture at his heart, which, like the hero of the olden 
story, he would fain conceal. Ten years ago, he 
married a beautiful girl, with a thousand pleas- 
ant visions of domestic quietude and bliss. But 
his dreams have faded ; the rosy hue of ro- 
mance is lost in the cold, gray dawn of his bitter 
reality. 

" His wife presides over his household with sur- 
passing gracefulness ; she is the idol of society, 
and a leader of fashion. She goes and comes 
through those spacious halls, dressed in garments 
that might befit a queen ; she gives brilliant 
dinners, where she shines the brightest star, and 
parties, which every body pronounces charming. 
But she is never the kind, devoted companion, 
the loving, trusting helpmate, sharing every joy 
and sorrow, cheering him when he desponds, and 
counselling in trials and perplexities with win- 
ning grace and tenderness. In short, she never 
makes home happy." 

"Ask," continues the same writer, " ask the 
peevish, complaining wife if she has ever thought 
seriously of this matter. What a neat, cosy little 
cottage hers is ! How many comforts she has ! 
Her two noble-looking boys and their fair sister 
are as beautiful a trio of children as ever graced 



186 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

a household ; her husband is kind and indulgent ; 
but her fretful disposition will not allow her a 
moment's tranquillity. She is in perpetual anxi- 
ety ; sometimes it is one thing, and again another, 
that causes her inquietude, but she is never at 
rest. The children yearn for the sunshine which 
they see in the homes of their playmates, and 
invent all kinds of excuses to get away from 
troubles that haunt their mother. They have 
already learned that pleasure cannot be found 
under their own roof tree, and the gambling 
hall, the theatre, and the club room hold out 
temptations which they can scarcely resist. Ay, 
think of these solemn considerations, and be 
wise." 

But enough. Delilah was not the worst woman 
that ever lived. She had a peculiar history, and 
brought her husband to a terrible end. Good 
may be taken from her case, like honey from the 
rock, and every woman may learn from her a use- 
ful lesson. Did time allow, we might trace in 
Delilah the evil effects of curiosity, which draws 
out secrets which should not be known, and the 
fatal consequences which sometimes follow what is 
deemed the most innocent tattling ; but we leave 
her portrait for the mind of each to study and 
improve. She was a link in the chain of divine 
providences which stretch along our world, bind- 



DELILAH. 187 

ing feeble, finite, erring man to the unerring, in- 
fallible, and glorious God. She has her place in 
that system, which works on, to consummate at 
last the perfection of human character, and the 
supreme felicity of human destiny. 



CHAPTER X. 

PROPRIETIES OF MARRIED LIFE. 

SARAI AND HAGAE. 

As some fair violet, loveliest of the glade, 
Sheds its mild fragrance on the lonely shade, 
Withdraws its modest head from public sight, 
Nor courts the sun, nor seeks the glare of light, 
Should some rude hand profanely dare intrude, 
And bear its beauties from its native wood, 
Exposed abroad its languid colors fly, 
Its form decays, and all its odors die ; 
So woman, born to dignify retreat, 
Unknown to flourish, and unseen be great ; 
To give domestic life its sweetest charm, 
With softest polish, and with virtue warm ; 
Fearful of fame, unwilling to be known, — 
Should seek but Heaven's applauses and her own. 

And Sarai, Abraham's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after 
Abraham had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to 
her husband Abraham, to be his wife. Genesis, xvi. 3. 

T is almost impossible for its, with our 
notions of life, and our well-regulated 
governments, to appreciate the position 
of the men and women who lived in 

(188) 




SARAI AND HAGAR. 189 

patriarchal ages. The customs of society are so 
changed, the "world has so wonderfully increased 
in numbers and knowledge, that an unbridged 
chasm separates us from the years beyond the 
Christian era. We are unable to account for 
the follies, or put a proper estimate upon the 
virtues, of the early inhabitants of the world. 
And yet a knowledge of patriarchal life would 
go far to disabuse our minds of false impressions, 
and relieve us of distressing doubts, which we 
often cherish. 

In the early ages of the world, before civil gov- 
ernments were instituted, or constitutions were 
written, the father was sole law maker and judge. 
His children, his servants, all his dependants, 
looked to him for law, and his word w r as life or 
death. Human society was in its simplest state, 
and the head of the family exercised all the con- 
trol of an absolute monarch. If he did wrong, 
there was no power on earth to call him to an 
account. He held his authority direct from God,, 
to whom alone he was accountable, and who alone 
was able to- punish him. His dependants were 
abject slaves. They came to him for protection, 
and banded with his family against the robbers of 
the wilderness. He held their lives and fortunes, 
and rewarded or punished them according to his 
pleasure. This patriarchal life Abraham was 



190 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

living at the time he was first introduced to our 
notice. He was the head of a large household, 
consisting of servants, and herdsmen, and other 
dependants who had clustered about him. His 
absolute reign was approved of God, who gave 
him direction as to his course of conduct and his 
line of duty. 

Sarai was his wife. She was his half sister, 
the daughter of his father. In those early days, 
God had as yet given no instruction as to the mar- 
riage relation ; and as marriage is arbitrary, it 
was no sin for Abraham to take for his companion 
so near a relative. There was no law but th'at of 
preference, and that he obeyed. Sarai was a 
native of Uz, a city of the Chaldees, in Mesopo- 
tamia. Her name signifies a princess of royal 
lineage, and she was probably accomplished and 
engaging. The people of Uz were fire worship- 
pers, and from her youth Sarai had witnessed the 
devotions in the temple of the sun. But in the 
.absence of positive proof, ive have some reason to 
believe that Sarai was a worshipper of God. 
Her soul rose above the gross and sensual mass 
which bowed in bondage to a bonfire at night, or 
the sun by day. It may be that this religious 
superiority made Abraham select her from all the 
beautiful women to whom he had access, and who 
would have been flattered by the attentions of a 
man so wealthy and powerful. 



SARAI AND HAGAR. 191 

Sarai first appears to us making a noble sacri- 
fice for the good of her husband. The first 
positive information we have concerning her pre- 
sents her in a noble and endearing light. God 
commanded her husband to depart from his own 
country, from his kindred, and from his father's 
house, into a distant land. Where this land was 
he was not informed ; how long it would take to 
find it he knew not ; what dangers would beset 
him in the way were not told him. Sarai, like a 
true wife, determined to accompany him. She 
loved her home, and many fond ties bound her to 
her kindred and her clime. But her husband's 
business and welfare required him to depart, and 
she was willing to leave all, and go with him. 
We must consider, in estimating the conduct of 
Sarai, that she was about encountering the great- 
est hardships. There were no levelled turnpikes, 
no cushioned rail cars, no modern improvements 
and facilities for travelling in those days. It was 
a weary march which they were to commence. 
The love of home and the entreaties of friends 
united against what must at first have appeared 
to her as a Quixotic movement. But she went. 
There was no murmuring on her part. Where 
her husband was she wished to be, to share his 
joys and mitigate his sorrows. And this will be 
the spirit of every true wife. Her pleasures will 



192 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

all bend to her husband's business. If duty re- 
quires him to leave the crowded city, and go away 
to some new region, she will not deem it a hard- 
ship ; nor, when there, will she sigh for the com- 
forts of her former home. A cottage with her 
husband will be better than a palace without him ; 
and if his circumstances so demand, she will with 
her own hand be willing to prepare her frugal 
meal, without the dainties of her more favored 
sisters. 

It seems that Sarai was a beautiful woman ; so, 
when, after wandering about, they reached Egypt, 
Abraham commanded Sarai to call him " brother," 
and then deceive the people as to their real rela- 
tionship. It was true that she was his sister, and 
she was also his wife. He was afraid that the 
Egyptians would kill him for his wife, on account 
of her beauty. But falsehood never prospers, and 
Abraham barely escaped the loss of his wife on 
account of hi& deception. She was at this time 
sixty-five years of age, and, as an elegant female 
writer remarks, " We are wont to imagine that the 
charms of sixty-five could not be very remarkable ; 
but reckoning according to the age to which mor- 
tals then lived, she was not older than a woman 
of thirty or five and thirty would be now, — con- 
sequently in her prime ; endowed, as her history 
gives us authority to suppose, with a quiet, retir- 



SARAI AND HAGAR. 193 

ing dignity, which greatly enhanced her beauty, 
and rendered it yet more interesting than that of 
girlhood.'' 

When we read of the old patriarchs living hun- 
dreds of years, we are very apt to associate with 
their age infirmity and feebleness. But we must 
remember that the very reason that made men 
live so long, made that old age green and youth- 
ful. We inherit a physical constitution not fresh 
from the hand of God, but broken by the crush- 
ing weight of the diseases, vices, and irregulari- 
ties of a race six thousand years old. Each age 
makes it worse, and the errors of dress, of food, 
of personal cleanliness, are adding to the calami- 
ties of each generation, and gradually deteriorat- 
ing and destroying the race. It is probable that 
the women mentioned in the early Bible history 
were more vigorous and elastic, graceful in per- 
son, and beautiful in features, at one hundred 
years of age, than the present race of females is 
at thirty years of age. 

Following Sarai along, we come to the circum- 
stances which are best calculated to signalize her 
history. God had promised Abraham a numer- 
ous posterity ; and if there was one desire of his 
heart more intense than another, it was that he 
might have a son to inherit his fortunes, and bear 
his race down to succeeding ages. But this boon 
18 



194 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

from heaven God denied him ; old age was ad- 
vancing, and the hopes of his life, like a faded 
flower, were fast withering. Sarai shared with 
him all the sorrow of his heart from this cause, 
and often together went they to the throne of 
grace, to plead with Heaven for its merciful inter- 
cession. When the last hope had died out, and 
all reasonable prospect of the blessing was extin- 
guished, Sarai suggested to her husband that he 
should wed Hagar, her beautiful Egyptian slave. 
Polygamy was common in those days, and was 
allowed by God. It is not a sin per se, but is a 
sin by divine statute. Theft is a sin per se ; false- 
hood is a sin per se. God himself cannot make 
wrong right ; he cannot make a lie the truth ; but 
if he had chosen for man a plurality of wives, he 
could have so ordained it at his pleasure. He al- 
lowed polygamy in the early stages of the world's 
history, that the inhabitants thereof might in- 
crease rapidly ; and when the purpose was accom- 
plished, he restricted the number, and hedged in 
the single pair with the plainest moral and physi- 
cal enactments. " In fact," as one says, " society 
in the mass has been very much like the individ- 
ual ; things are permitted or overlooked in child- 
hood which are neither permitted nor overlooked 
in maturer years ; and it is quite plain from read- 
ing, which gives us the biography of humanity, as 



SARAI AND HAGAR. 195 

a whole, that arrangements were tolerated, if not 
applauded, in the earliest stages of society, which 
were not so in its riper and its maturer years. In 
this matter of Abraham's marriage to two wives, 
it was God who tolerated it. It is the law of God 
that makes it sin now ; and when the great Legis- 
lator speaks, all dispute or doubt about the moral- 
ity or immorality of an action is put an end to." 
The suggestion of Sarai pleased Abraham, 
and he wedded Hagar. The whole affair was an 
open one, and Sarai could blame no one but her- 
self. The fruit of this union, some time after- 
wards, was the birth of Ishmael, a proud and 
wayward son, who was, from his entry into the 
world, a source, of trouble to his patriarchal sire- 
As might be expected, trouble arose in this fam- 
ily, even before the birth of Ishmael. Hagar, 
elevated at once from the condition of a slave to 
the station of a wife and mother, became arro- 
gant and overbearing. Her prosperity caused her 
to assume towards Sarai conduct the most unbe- 
coming and ungrateful. Sarai, on her part, grew 
jealous and fretful, and the home of the patriarch 
changed from the abode of love to a scene of 
wrangling and bitterness. And so would it be in 
all cases, were polygamy allowed by God. No 
man has affections deep enough to supply two 
streams, and no house is large enough for two 



196 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

wives. Sarai and Hagar — the one peevish and 
discontented, the other arrogant and proud — are 
pictures of what every home would be, under a 
system which allows a plurality of wives. The 
wisdom of God is clearly shown in the arrange- 
ment under which we live, and out of any other 
will grow innumerable woes and miseries. A 
man may have his friends, male and female ; he 
may love the society of many, but there is a throne 
which one alone can occupy ; an altar at which 
one alone can minister ; a retreat which one alone 
can fill. 

When Sarai saw that she was despised by her 
former bondwoman, she went to Abraham with 
•her complaints. The clear mind of the patriarch 
saw at once the position in which he was placed. 
He was called to decide between his two wives ; 
he was convinced that one or the other must sub- 
mit, and it did not take long for him to choose. 
He loved Hagar for the hope he had of her future 
child ; for the heir she would give him, and whom 
he expected to love with all a father's affection. 
But he loved Sarai for herself; for the noble 
traits of character she possessed ; for the excel- 
lences of her disposition, almost spoiled by the 
unnatural alliance he had made with the bond- 
woman. He remembered when, in his youth's 
young dawn, he had wedded her, a gay, cheerful, 



SARAI AND HAGAR. 197 

loving girl, with not a trace of care on her marble 
brow, and not a shade of sorrow on that calm 
countenance. His heart went back beyond all 
his desires for posterity, beyond his interviews 
with Hagar, beyond his love of the bondwoman ; 
and as he folded Sarai to his heart again, he said, 
" Behold, Hagar is in your hands ; do with her as 
you will." Then began Sarai to play the tyrant. 
All woman's tact was brought into requisition to 
perplex and vex Hagar ; all her skill was em- 
ployed to make her situation unpleasant. There 
is no revenge so cool and keen as that of a woman 
towards her rival. Man, in his darkest moods, 
does not begin to hate with half the fury of 
woman, when between her and the object of her 
affections passes the form of her rival. It is a 
crime she never forgives, a wrong she never for- 
gets. 

Under the cruel treatment of Sarai, Hagar 
fled ; but an angel met her, and drove her back. 
She was Abraham's wife ; she had entered into 
compact with him, and had no right to leave his 
tent. She was received again ; but on the birth 
of Ishmael, new troubles arose, which increased 
until they became insupportable. In the mean 
while, Sarai was informed by God that she should 
have a son, who would become the father of many 
nations. She was ninety years of age, and Abra- 



198 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

ham was one hundred years old. In due time 
Isaac was born. The dissensions between the 
rival wives now became so intense, that a division 
of the family was inevitable. Sarai had all along 
looked upon Ishmael with unfriendly feelings, and 
the pent-up fountains of her soul now gushed out. 
" The son of this bondwoman will take the prop- 
erty which ought to belong to my son," she rea- 
soned with herself. " He will want the herds and 
flocks, and my son will be defrauded of his por- 
tion." Full of her purpose, she goes to Abra- 
ham, and he kindly remonstrates, for he loves 
Ishmael, and does not wish to part with him. 
But Sarai settled the question, as women are apt 
to do, by saying, decidedly, " The son of this bond- 
woman shall not be heir with my son ; cast her 
out." God also sanctioned this course. He saw 
that Sarai and Hagar could not dwell together ; 
so Hagar was driven out. She took her child, 
and commenced her wanderings. Sad and hard 
was her lot ; at one time, fainting and weak, her 
child dying for want of water ; while Sarai, in 
the tent of her lord, reposed on soft pillows, and 
had every blessing. Here we have the bitter fruits 
of polygamy — fruits that such a system will 
be sure to bear under the most favorable circum^ 
stances. God never designed a plurality of wives, 
but wisely ordained that man should be the hus- 



SARAI AND HAGAR. 199 

band of one wife, the sharer of one heart, and the 
head of one family. Introduce any other system, 
as the ancient patriarchs did, — as that strange 
people, the Mormons, by the shores of the Great 
Salt Lake, are now doing, — and you introduce 
confusion^ and disorder throughout all social life. 
In reviewing the conduct and character of these 
rival wives, we are struck with the respect of 
Sarai for her husband. She addressed him al- 
ways by the most respectful titles, and did not 
condescend to apply to him any of the common 
expressions of the times. She respected him, and 
treated him with the greatest courtesy. Where 
there is no respect for a husband, there can hardly 
exist any affection ; and the unbecoming famil- 
iarity which often exists between married parties, 
the nicknames they give each other, and the ab- 
sence of that courteous respect which is essential 
to all dignified and well-ordered society, are fast 
making inroads upon the most happy households, 
and producing wretchedness in happy circles. If 
a woman sees nothing in her husband to respect, 
as well as love, she should not unite herself with 
him. Affection cannot live where there is no 
mental or moral worth to sustain it. It becomes 
a lean shadow, and soon dies out. The wife owes 
a respectful deference to the opinions of her hus- 
band ; and when she ceases to render it, one of the 



200 



strongest holds she can have upon him has been 
broken. The habit which prevails among married 
parties of treating each other without any of the 
restraints of public courtesy, is the source of 
much of the unhappiness which exists in the do- 
mestic circle. When Sarai addressed her hus- 
band, she called him " my lord ; " when he spoke, 
she listened with womanly deference to his opin- 
ions ; and when he commanded, she obeyed. 
Thus she retained her influence^ and was enabled 
to move her companion to whatever she chose. 
The cases of Vashti and Esther contain a striking 
illustration of the idea which I am endeavoring 
to enforce. Vashti was commanded by the king, 
her husband, to come to his banquet. It was an 
unusual thing ; somewhat unjust, yet not greatly 
so. She threw herself upon her dignity, her 
rights, and sent back a haughty message. The 
result was her debasement and banishment. 
Queen Esther wished a favor which it would be 
hard to grant. To accomplish her purpose, she 
invited the king to her banquet, plied him with 
honeyed words, threw around him the arms of 
her affection, until lie offered to sacrifice one half 
of his kingdom for her pleasure. 

In Sarai we have also an admirable instance 
of devotion to the welfare of her husband. What 
was Abraham's interest she made hers. There 



SARAI AND HAGAR. 201 

was no captiousness about staying at home with 
his friends in Uz ; tent life was as good as any, if 
her husband's interest required it; and when 
God called him to become a pilgrim, she took her 
staff and followed him. There was no talk about 
how much she had sacrificed to become his wife ; 
what kind friends she had left in the home of her 
youth ; what privileges she once enjoyed, of which 
she was now deprived ; what toils she now en- 
dured, to which she had previously been a stran- 
ger. The desert or. the city was her home, if her 
husband was true. She took him for better or 
for worse. 

We see in this beautiful history of the rival 
wives something of the character of the slavery 
of the ancients. Such as it was, it has been 
made an excuse to cover such slavery as we see 
now. But we find it a mere servitude, growing 
out of the nature of primitive society, in which 
the holder sustained the patriarchal relation to 
certain dependants. Hagar was a slave ; but she 
fled when she chose, and returned when she chose. 
She was free to go, and only when she was there 
she was bound by obedience to her master and 
mistress. How different the slavery of our times ! 
How differently it treats woman, man's equal, 
made so by God, and a divine birthright ! Under 
the slavery, or rather servitude, of patriarchal 



202 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

life, woman was protected ; but woman has no 
protection under the slavery of our age and land. 
Women whiter than yourselves, and fairer too, 
perchance, are sold at auction to the highest bid- 
der. A few days ago, some one gave in the public 
journals an account of a visit he made to a slave 
auction in the South. " I already heard," he 
says, " the loud, deep voice of the slave auction- 
eer, as he appraised his chattels, and rattled out, 
4 Six hundred and fifty — no more than six hun- 
dred and fifty for this likely negro fellow ; fifty- 
six ; six hundred and sixty ; • &c, &c. This was 
early on Monday morning. Scarcely had the 
echoes of the high anthem that pealed from the 
Episcopal organ and choir a few hours before yet 
died away ; hardly had the swell of the sweet 
tune that rose from Dr. Palmer's Presbyterian 
church yet murmured to the stars ; and the unar- 
tistic, but loud and clear psalm-shout that as- 
cended from the throats of a thousand Baptist 
negroes the preceding Sabbath eve, had as yet 
hardly had time, (if time it takes,) to mingle 
with the triumphal and eternal chorus of the 
harps of heaven. Having so lately heard all 
these, with what harsh and grating discord did 
the horrid voice of the man-seller shake the 
heavens, and strike upon my ear ! 



SARAI AND HAGAR. 203 

' Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, 

With such accursed instruments as these, 
Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, 
And j arrest the celestial harmonies ? ' " 

After describing the place, the auctioneer, and 
the crowd, and after giving a description of one 
or two sales, he proceeds as follows : " A middle- 
aged woman then mounted for her turn. She 
had a vacant, careless, stupid look, and as the 
auctioneer praised up her high qualities, a chaotic 
grin would now and then flit across her counte- 
nance. He declaimed about her, and continued 
repeating her praises, as, ' This splendid seam- 
stress and cutter, Lucretia. She is a splendid 
seamstress and cutter. As a sewer and cutter, I 
am told Lucretia has no equal, besides being val- 
uable as a housekeeper,' &c. She was knocked 
down to a man who I learned is going to keep a 
tavern. The next that came upon the steps was 
the last to be sold. She was a young woman 
who, her owners and the auctioneer said, was just 
eighteen years of age. She was of a dark olive 
color, not near so swarthy as the others had been ; 
she had a very fine forehead, pleasing counte- 
nance, and mild, lustrous eyes. The auctioneer 
took off her hood, to show her countenance, and, 
when she replaced it, again took it off; and, in 
appraising her, by word and action appealed to 



204 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FBIEND. 

the lowest and basest passions of the assembled 
crowd. She clasped to her bosom a light-colored, 
blue-eyed, curly, silken-haired child, only ten 
weeks old, and who, young as it was, seemed to 
cast a terrified look on auctioneer and bidders. 

" ' The next is the girl Adeline. Gentlemen, 
did you ever see such a face, and head, and form 
as that ? (Taking off her hood.) She is only 
eighteen years old, and already has a child, a 
male child, ten weeks old ; will consequently 
make a valuable piece of property for some one. 
She is a splendid housekeeper and seamstress.' 

" The big tear stood glittering in the poor girl's 
eye, and at every licentious allusion, she cast a 
look of pity and woe at the auctioneer and at the 
crowd, which was responded to only by a loud, 
unfeeling, and brutal laugh. She was knocked 
down to, I know not whom, for my eyes were too 
dim to discern. She descended from the court 
house steps, looked at her new master, looked at 
the audience, looked fondly into her sweet child's 
face, pressed it warmly to her bosom, with the 
auctioneer's hard-hearted remark ringing in her 
ear, that ' that child wouldn't trouble her pur' 
chaser long.' " 

This is the slavery of our land, which men at- 
tempt to justify by the slavery of Hagar and her 
son. This is the slavery which even doctors of 



SAEAI AND HAGAR. 205 

divinity declare that the Bible ancl the Almighty 
(God forgive the blasphemy) sanction. Well 
may a man from such a scene exclaim, with our 
own New England poet, — 

" There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, 

Shorn of his strength, and bound in bonds of steel, 
Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, 
And shake the pillars of this Commonweal." 

In tracing down the line of this history, we 
also have a beautiful fulfilment of prophecy. 
Isaac was to be the father of nations — the great 
progenitor of the Saviour of the world. The glo- 
rious transmission there commenced, and the royal 
history of the Jews, the advent of Christ, the sal- 
vation of the world, are the glorious fulfilment. 
Of Ishmael, the son of Hagar, God promised that 
he should be the father of a great nation, but that 
he should be a wild man, whose hand should be 
against every man, and every man's hand should 
be against him. His descendants were to be like 
him, wild, fierce, and untamable. The descend- 
ants of Ishmael, the Arabs, are the exact fulfil- 
ment of this prophecy. They cannot be tamed ; 
three thousand years of civilization have been lost 
upon them, and they are Ishmaelites still. " They 
have occupied," says one writer, " the same coun- 
try, and followed the same mode of life, from the 



206 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

days of their great ancestor down to the present 
times, and range the wide extent of burning sands 
which separate them from all surrounding nations, 
as rude, and savage, and untractable as the wild 
ass himself. Claiming the barren plains of Ara- 
bia as the patrimonial domain assigned by God to 
the founder of their nation, they consider them- 
selves entitled to seize and appropriate to their 
own use whatever they can find there. Impatient 
of restraint, and jealous of their liberty, they 
form no connection with the neighboring states ; 
they admit of little or no friendly intercourse, 
but live in a state of continual hostility with the 
rest of the world. The tent is their dwelling, 
and the circular camp their city ; the spontaneous 
produce of the soil, to which they sometimes add 
a little patch of corn, furnishes them with means 
of subsistence amply sufficient for their moderate 
desires ; and the liberty of ranging at pleasure 
their interminable wilds fully compensates, in 
their opinion, for the want of all other accommo- 
dations. Mounted on their favorite horses, they 
scour the waste in search of plunder, with a ve- 
locity surpassed only by the wild ass. They levy 
contributions on every person that happens to fall 
in their way, and frequently rob their own coun- 
trymen with as little ceremony as they do a stran- 
ger or an enemy ; their hand is still against every 
man, and every man's hand against them." 



SARAI AND HAGAR. 207 

I have only space to refer to the end of these 
rival wives. Hagar wandered forth, and her 
death is not mentioned. Some suppose that she 
returned to Abraham after the death of Sarai, 
and fulfilled the duties of a wife and mother ; 
but of this we have not sufficient proof. Sarai 
died in Kirjath Arba ; her husband bought a 
tomb for her remains, and, with Isaac, wept over 
it. She was one hundred and twenty-seven years 
old when she was called home from earth. She 
died with an immortal hope, and entered on im- 
mortal life. 

0, it is a solemn thing to see a mother die ; a 
Sarai departing from earth to heaven ; from Kir- 
jath Arba, which is " Hebron in the land of Ca- 
naan," to the New Jerusalem, the paradise of 
God. " Children," said the mother of John 
Wesley, the last thing she uttered — " children, 
as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to 
God ; " and some one with poetic soul has added 
to her dying language, " Music sounds best after 
sunset. It is no time to mourn here, while an- 
gels clap their wings, and the whole family above 
cry, Welcome home ! Who would keep his tears 
for coronation day ? " Sweet, melancholy, touch- 
ing, tender, is the history ; elevating, ennobling, 
and divine are the lessons to be learned from the 
Scripture narrative of the " rival wives." 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE SISTER OP CHARITY. 

DORCAS. 

Good sisters, 
How they toiled from day to day, 
Till many weeks had rolled their weary way ; 
Each one in crowded marts of business stood, 
And plead for means as hunger pleads for food. 

'Twas woman's plea ; 
But how it won its way ! 

For hearts o'er purses e'en can hold the sway ; 
The crowd of business fled before their face, 
And sternest men gave audience to their grace. 

Each day 
The merchant stood behind the shelf; 
They entered in ; he gently bowed himself; 
He thought their custom his, till calmly told 
They sought not silks, but sought his well-earned gold. 

His hopes were dashed ; 
And bows, he'd none to make ; 
Excuse he made, but that they did not take ; 
Their pleas unite, and on his heart prevail, — 
Their object gained, again they set their sail. 

(208) 



DORCAS. 209 

And so they went, 
Through city wide and long, 
Weak in their sex, but in their errand strong. 
The work was done ; the needed sum was raised ; 
Long may they live, and longer still be praised ! 



Life done, 
And better than the pastor's lay 
Shall they receive who worked to win the day. 
" Well done ! " their Father echoes from above, 
" Come, bask forever in a heaven of love ! " 



Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by in- 
terpretation is called Dorcas : this woman was full of good works and 
alms deeds which she did. And it came to pass in those days, that 
she was sick, and died j whom when they had washed, they laid her 
in an upper chamber. . . . Then Peter arose, and went with them. 
When he was come, they brought him into the upper chamber : and 
all the widows stood by him, weeping, and showing the coats and 
garments which Dorcas made while she was with them. Acts, ix. 
36, 37, 39. 



iORCAS was a Christian woman, who 
abode at Joppa, who was very benevo- 
lent to the poor, and who spent much 
of her time in useful employments for 
the good of others. She was a sister of charity, 
whose case has deserved a record in the word of 
God. She sickened and died, and was raised to 
life by the prayers of Peter, who knew her well, 
and who had often experienced her bounty. She 
was a working Christian, who delighted far more 
to secure the good of others than to seek her own 
14 




210 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

ease and gratification, and who endeared herself 
to all who loved the Lord in those days. 

Without dwelling on the case of Dorcas, we 
take her as an illustration of a large class of noble 
women who are found in the world, who are mak- 
ing great sacrifices for the glory of God and the 
souls of the lost. They are often humble in life, 
sad at heart, and despised by the world. They 
live unknown to fame, for their deeds are quiet, 
and their course is often obscure. 

The Romish church has its Sisters of Charity. 
They are women whom disappointment or sin 
has driven from the world, and they have 
devoted their lives to retirement, solitude, and 
charity. Though convent life doubtless leads 
to the foulest wrongs, there are many of the 
Romish Sisters of Charity whose hearts are alive 
to the highest impulses of goodness, and whose 
deeds are worthy to be recorded in the annals of 
the church. The Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul 
are known all over the world for their humble, 
unostentatious goodness and charity. Their lives 
are pure, their deportment gentle, and their deeds 
heavenly. 

But there is a larger class, a purer body of wo- 
men, sisters of charity, who live in the world, and 
strive to save it — mothers and daughters, wives 
and sisters, who love God, and the suffering 



DORCAS. 211 

poor. The Protestant sister of charity has no 
pharisaic title, no sounding name ; she wears no 
nunnish habit, nor do the cross, and beads, and 
skull, dangle from her waist ; but she goes forth 
alone, weeping for the woes of the living throng, 
saying to those who ask her of her dead, — 

" Better that those for whom I weep 
Were lying in their graves asleep ! 
O, no ! I weep not for the dead ; 
My tears are for the living shed ! " 

Harriet Newell and Ann H. Judson represent 
one class of these sisters of charity — the mis- 
sionary sisterhood. Long ere the calls of the 
world had awakened the slumbering church, those 
gentle women resolved to forsake home, and 
friends, and native land, to go out amid untold 
and undescribed dangers, to do all they could to 
save the heathen world from death. It was not 
romance that led them ; it was not a love of nov- 
elty that inspired them. They went forth with 
high, pure motives, and sublime conceptions of 
what is duty. One soon fell a victim to her noble 
heroism, and found a grave on heathen soil ; the 
other lived long, to suffer and labor for the lost ; 
but both are noble in their lives and deaths. Mrs. 
Judson, in her voluminous correspondence, gives 
us glimpses into the beauty and self-sacrifice of 



212 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

her spirit. Before her real sorrows began, she 
wrote to her friends at home, " Not more re- 
freshing to the thirsty lips of the sons of Afric is 
the cooling stream, not more luxurious to the 
meagre, half-starved, native Andaman is a morsel 
of food, than your letters to our weary and al- 
most famished social feelings. Two long years 
and a half had elapsed since we left our native 
country, without our hearing one word from any 
of our American friends. Thirteen months of 
this have been spent in the cruel, avaricious, be- 
nighted country of Burmah, without a single 
Christian friend, or female companion of any 
kind." 

And ere long, on her poor, defenceless head fell 
the bitter storm of persecution ; but she did not 
falter, or turn back. She followed her husband 
to prison and torture, speaking all the way the 
words of life to the heathen crowds. When 
urged to remain in this country, to which she 
once returned, to regain her health, she replied, — 

" The sultry climes of India I still choose ; 
There would I toil, and sinners' bonds unloose ; 
There would I live, and spend my latest breath, 
And in my Jesus' service meet a stingless death." 

Elizabeth, wife of John Bunyan, is the repre- 
sentative of another class of noble women. She 



DORCAS. 213 

appeared in open court as her husband's advocate, 
and beautifully vindicated his course. We are 
told, " that although Elizabeth stands alone 
among her sex as an advocate, yet there never 
was offered a more eloquent and unsophisticated 
defence than that which she made on behalf of 
her husband. She first of all had the courage "to 
appear before the House of Lords, to ask the Su- 
preme Court of Appeals to relax the rigors of a 
persecuting law. Their lordships, it is said, 
rudely told her to go to the judges of the assize 
who had condemned her husband ; and without 
fail she did so." 

The particulars of her spirited defence of her 
husband, are thus given to us : At the assize 
court Sir Matthew Hale presided, and he was 
accompanied by Mr. Justice Twisden, a magis- 
trate of ferocious temperament, whose counte- 
nance and demeanor strangely contrasted with 
the mildness and placidity of the lord chief jus- 
tice. We are indebted to John Bunyan himself 
for a description of the conduct of Judge Twis- 
den on this memorable occasion. He says, 
" Judge Twisden snapped at my poor wife, Eliza- 
beth, and angrily told her that her husband was 
a convicted person, and could not be released un- 
less he would promise to preach no more." 

But Elizabeth, however, much as she loved her 



214 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FEIEND. 

husband, was more enamoured of the gospel ; and 
she gave the court to understand that her husband 
could not purchase freedom at the expense of 
keeping silence about the mercy and compassion 
of God. 

" It is false," continued Elizabeth, " to say that 
he has done wrong ; for at the meetings where 
they preached, they had God's presence with 
them." 

- ""Will he leave off preaching?" roared Twis- 
den. 

" My lord," said Elizabeth, " he dares not leave 
off preaching as long as he can speak. But, my 
lords," she proceeded, with tears in her eyes, 
" just consider that we have four small children, 
one of them blind, and all of them have nothing 
to live upon, while the father is in prison, but the 
charity of Christian people. my lords, I my- 
self 'smayed at the news, when my husband was 
apprehended, and being but young, and unaccus- 
tomed to such things, I fell in labor, and was de- 
livered of a dead child." 

This was too much for Sir Matthew Hale, who 
now interposed, with the ejaculation, " Alas, poor 
woman ! " He then inquired what was her hus- 
band's calling. 

" A tinker, please you, my lord," said his wife ; 
" and because he is a tinker, and a poor man, he 



DORCAS. 215 

is despised, and cannot have justice." Law is 
stronger than tears, and the lord chief justice told 
her that her husband had broken it ; he told her 
that there was only one person in the realm who 
could pardon her husband, and that person was 
the king. But how was the broken-hearted wife 
of a tinker to find her way to the footstool of a 
monarch? "Alas, poor woman!" he said, "I 
am sorry for your pitiable case." 

" Elizabeth now became convinced how vain it 
was to expect justice and mercy from an earthly 
tribunal, and with an heroic glory which only can 
be found in the annals of the Christian faith, 
she pointed to her tears as she departed, and ut- 
tered words which never should die as long as the 
English language exists. 

" ' See these tears,' said she ; ' but I do not 
weep for myself. I weep for you, when I think 
what an account such poor creatures as you will 
have to give at the coming of the Lord.' 

" This scene took place, we will add, not only 
before John Bunyan was known as the author of 
a book, but before he had even conceived the out- 
line of his ' Pilgrim's Progress.' He was kept in 
jail in order that he might not preach ; but by 
this persecution he was enabled to write a book 
in his prison cell, which has preached to England 
for many generations, and which will edify and 
enlighten the world to the remotest posterity." 



216 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

Margaret Winthrop, wife of the first gover- 
nor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is 
the representative of another class of sisters of 
charity — that class whose labors lie at home, 
and who endeavor to make home lovely. There 
is heroism sometimes in keeping from the world, 
in shunning society, and devoting one's self to 
the great work of making others happy there. 
Such a heroine was the wife of John Winthrop, 
who found amid the cares of state a meek, pious 
helper in his wife. She went on no mission 
to the heathen ; she appeared as no advocate 
at the bar ; but she was a sweet, gentle sister of 
charity. She wrote to her husband thus : "It 
is your love that conceives the best, and makes 
all things seem better than they are* I wish that 
I might always please thee, and that those com- 
forts which we have in each other may be daily 
increased, as far as they be pleasing to God. I 
will use the speech to thee that Abigail did to 
David : ' I will be a servant to wash the feet of 
my lord.' I will do any service wherein I may 
please my good husband. I confess I cannot do 
enough for thee ; but thou art pleased to accept 
the will for the deed, and rest contented. 

" I have many reasons to make me love thee ; 
wherefore I will name two : first, because thou 
lovest God ; and secondly, because thou lovest 



DORCAS. 217 

me. If these two were wanting, all the rest 
would be eclipsed. But I must leave this dis- 
course, and go about my household affairs. I am 
a bad housewife to be so long from them ; but I 
must needs borrow a little time to talk with thee, 
my sweetheart." Ah, the great world pays its 
homage to the sisters of charity who visit prisons, 
who go to India, who appear as reformers, and 
publicly do good ; but the " home angels " who 
care to bless them? And yet they often show 
nobler traits of character, and develop higher 
excellences, than are ever demanded on the part 
of public actors. 

We have recently read of a woman who exhib- 
ited heroism worthy of any cause. The story is 
this : " A worldly man was with some friends in 
a coffee house. Wine had inflamed the heads 
and loosened the tongues of the guests. Each 
sketched the character of his wife, and enumer- 
ated her defects, as well as her good qualities. 
' As to mine/ said our worldling, ' all that I could 
say in her praise would fall far below the truth. 
My wife unites all the virtues, all the amiable 
qualities, which I can desire. She would be per- 
fect, if she were not a Methodist. But her piety 
gives her no ill humor. Nothing disturbs her 
equanimity ; nothing irritates her, nor renders 
her impatient. I might go with you, gentlemen, 



218 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

at midnight, and ask her to get up and serve us 
with a supper, and she would not show the least 
discontent. She would do the honors of the 
table with as much assiduity as if I had brought 
loved and long-expected guests.' 

" ' Well, then, let us put your wife to the proof,' 
said some of the company. 

" A considerable bet was made. The husband 
agreed to the proposal, and our wine drinkers, 
forgetting all propriety, went, in the middle of the 
night, to invade with their noisy mirth the peace- 
ful dwelling of the humble Christian. 

" ' Where is my wife ? ' asked the master of the 
house, of the servant who opened the door. 

" ' Sir, she is asleep long ago.' 

(U Go wake her, and tell her to prepare supper 
for me and my friends.' 

" The wife, obedient to the call of her husband, 
quickly made her toilet, met the strangers, and 
received them in the most gracious manner. 
' Fortunately,' said she, ' I have some provisions 
in my house, and in a few minutes supper will be 
ready.' 

" The table was spread, and the repast served. 
The pious lady did the honors of the table with 
perfect good will, and constantly bestowed upon 
her guests the most polite attention. 

" This was too much for our drinkers. They 



DORCAS. 219 

could not help admiring such extraordinary equa- 
nimity. One of them (the soberest in the com- 
pany) spoke, when the dessert was brought in. 
and said, ' Madam, your politeness amazes us. 
Our sudden appearance in your house at so un- 
seasonable an hour is owing to a wager. We 
have lost it, and we do not complain. But tell 
us, how is it possible that you, a pious person, 
should treat with so much kindness persons 
whose conduct you cannot approve ? ' 

" ' Gentlemen,' she replied, ' when we were 
married, my husband and myself, we both lived 
in dissipation. Since that time, it has pleased the 
Lord to convert me to himself. My husband, on 
the contrary, continues to go on in the ways of 
worldliness. I tremble for his future state. If 
he should die now, he would need to be pitied. 
As it is not possible for me to save him from that 
punishment which awaits him in the world to 
come, if he is not converted, I must apply myself 
at least to render his present life as agreeable as 
possible.' " 

It requires more grace to do a deed like this, 
than it does to go out and distribute tracts from 
night to morn ; and such a woman is worthy of 
exalted praise. 

Bettpna, the child-poet of Goethe's dreams, is 
the representative of still another class of women, 



220 

who strive to make the world better, and thus be- 
come sisters of charity. Trained in the school 
of sorrow, endowed with a large soul, and brought 
into correspondence with wise men, poets, artists, 
and philosophers, Bettina commenced her love- 
mission when only sixteen years of age ; and so 
earnest were her early pleas for the poor and the 
oppressed, that her patrons feared to recognize 
her, and alone she called on princes to ameliorate 
the condition of their subjects. Goethe early 
learned to love the simple child for the truth and 
beauty of her character. 

That woman must be indeed a sister of char- 
ity who can find her way to the heart of such a 
genius as Goethe, enter it as into a temple, and 
arrange the altar service to suit her own will, and 
bow upon the bosom of her sublime resolve, the 
priest of poetry and reason, until he acknowl- 
edges her supremacy over him. Goethe writes to 
her in all the fervor of his soul, and each sen- 
tence shows how much she has secured influence 
over him : " Thou art a sweet-minded child ; I 
read thy clear letters with inward pleasure, and 
shall surely always read them again with the 
same enjoyment. Thy pictures of what has hap- 
pened to thee, with all inward feelings of tender- 
ness, and what thy witty demon inspires thee 
with, are real original sketches, which, in the 



DORCAS. 221 

midst of more serious occupations, cannot be de- 
nied their high interest ; take it, therefore, as a 
hearty truth, when I thank thee for them. Pre- 
serve thy confidence in me, and let it, if possible, 
increase. Thou wilt always be and remain to me 
what thou now art. How can one requite thee, 
except by being willing- to be enriched with all 
thy good gifts ? Thou thyself knowest how much 
thou art to my mother ; her letters overflow with 
praise and love. Continue to dedicate lovely 
monuments of remembrance to the fleeting mo- 
ments of thy good fortune. I cannot promise 
thee that I will not presume to work out themes 
so high-gifted and full of life, if they still speak 
as truly and warmly to the heart." 

And Bettina replies to Goethe in the same pure, 
ethereal strain, tinged, perhaps, with the tran- 
scendental hues of the times and scenes, but a 
true heroine every where, making a good and 
great man better and greater, from her guileless 
lispings : " Talent strikes conviction, but genius 
does not convince ; to whom it is imparted, it 
gives forebodings of the immeasurable and infi- 
nite, while talent sets certain limits, and so, be- 
cause it is understood, is also maintained. 

" The infinite in the finite — genius in every art 
is music. In itself it is the soul, when it touches 
tenderly ; but when it masters this affection, then 



222 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

it is spirit which warms, nourishes, bears, and re- 
produces the own soul — and, therefore, we per- 
ceive music ; otherwise the sensual ear would not 
hear it, but only the spiritual ; and thus every art 
is the body of music, which is the soul of every 
art ; and so is music, too, the soul of love, which 
also answers not for its working ; for it is the 
contact of divine with human. Love expresses 
nothing through itself, but that it is sunk in har- 
mony. Love is fluid ; it flows in its own element, 
and that element is harmony. 

***** 

"The moon is shining high above the hills, 
the clouds drive over like herds. I have already 
stood a while at the windows, and looked at 
the chasing and driving above. Dear Goethe, 
good Goethe, I am alone ; it has raised me out 
of myself, up to thee ! Like a new-born babe, 
must I nurse this love between us ; beautiful 
butterflies balance themselves upon the flowers 
which I have planted about its cradle ; golden 
fables adorn its dreams ; I joke and play with it ; 
I try every stratagem in its favor. But you rule 
it without trouble, by the noble harmony of your 
mind ; with you there is n© need of tender ex- 
pressions or protestations. While I take care of 
each moment of the present, a power of blessing 
goes forth from you, which reaches beyond all 
sense, and above all the world." 



DORCAS. 223 

Lucretia Mott represents another class of sis- 
ters of charity. Some may doubt the propriety 
of her appearance as a public lecturer, but none 
can withhold the admiration we always feel for an 
estimable character. Educated as a Quaker, Mrs. 
Mott has arrived at an advanced age, an .earnest 
pleader in many a noble cause. Her pen and her 
voice have been devoted, with woman's holy ardor, 
to the benefit of others. " My sympathy," she 
says, " was early enlisted for the poor slave, by 
the reading books in our schools depicting his 
wrongs and sufferings, and the pictures and rep- 
resentations by Thomas Clarkson, exhibiting the 
slave ship, the middle passage, &c. The ministry 
of Elias Hicks and others on this subject, as well 
as their example in refusing the products of the 
unrequited bondman's labor, awakened a strong 
feeling in my heart." 

She saw and felt the necessity of a change in 
the condition of her own sex, and remarks, " The 
unequal condition of woman with man also early 
impressed my mind. Learning, while at school, 
that the charge for the education of girls was the 
same as that for boys, and that, when they became 
teachers, women received only half as much as 
men for their services, the injustice of this dis- 
tinction was so apparent, that I resolved to claim 
for my sex all that an impartial Creator had be- 



224 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

stowed, which, by custom and a perverted appli- 
cation of the Scriptures, had been wrested from 
woman." 

Nor, with all our scruples as to the duty of a 
woman to preach, can we do otherwise than re- 
spect the sincere conviction that she should lift 
up her voice for the truth and the life. " At 
twenty-five years of age," she says, " surrounded 
with a little family and many cares, I still felt 
called to a more public life of devotion to duty, 
and engaged in the ministry in our society. I 
received every encouragement from those in au- 
thority until the event of a separation among us, 
in 1827, when my convictions led me to adhere 
to the sufficiency of the light within, resting on 
' truth as authority,' rather than ' taking au- 
thority for truth.' I searched the Scriptures 
daily, and often found the text would bear a 
wholly different construction from that which was 
pressed upon our acceptance. Being a noncon- 
formist to the ordinances and rituals of the pro- 
fessed church, duty led me to hold up the insuffi- 
ciency of all these, including Sabbath day obser- 
vance, as the proper test of the Christian charac- 
ter, and that only ' he that doeth righteousness is 
righteous.' The practical life, then, being the 
highest evidence of a sound faith, I have felt a 
far greater interest in the moral movements of 
our age than in any theological discussion." 



DORCAS. 225 

Florence Nightingale is the representative of 
another class of women. Her praise has gone 
forth into all the world. And yet there was one, 
behind her, who is worthy of as much honor. 
The mother who trains her daughter to a noble 
life, and who impresses on her young mind the 
lessons of goodness, is no less a sister of mercy 
than the daughter who goes forth to Crimean 
wretchedness, and on plains strewed with death 
binds up the wounded, and gives water to the 
dying. We think the secret of the heroic deeds 
of Florence Nightingale will be found in the fact 
communicated in the following passage, from the 
pen of one able to appreciate real greatness: 
" The world has regarded with admiration the 
self-sacrificing devotion of this noble-hearted Eng- 
lish woman to the sick and wounded soldiers in 
the Crimea. Facts which have recently appeared, 
respecting her early history, show that her char- 
acter was the result of the benevolent training in 
which she was reared, and furnish great encour- 
agement to parents, who, by precept and exam- 
ple, would bring up their children to lives of use- 
fulness. 

" Though reared in the midst of wealth and 

luxury, she was accustomed, from her earliest 

childhood, to see the efforts of her parents directed 

to the relief and education of the poor. Her 

15 



226 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

early life was passed on the two large estates of 
her family, in the counties of Hampshire and 
Derbyshire, in close contact with the peasantry, 
whom her benevolent parents regarded more than 
their wealthy acquaintances. It was the daily 
duty of Florence and her sister to visit the cot- 
tages of the poor, carrying comforts and delica- 
cies to the invalids, or a book to read to the old 
and infirm ; and the schools which their father 
and mother had established in the neighboring 
villages came under the care of the daughters, 
as they grew up." 

The mother, with whom lies the secret of 
beautiful deeds, is forgotten ; the daughter, the 
actor, the exponent of a mother's principles, will 
never be forgotten. And worthy is she of being 
remembered. " Her deeds of love," as one says, 
" are among the few redeeming features of the 
war in the East, and her memory will be pre- 
served and cherished when that of the captains 
and warriors, whose names are written in blood, 
is forgotten." 

That all women could be what Florence Night- 
ingale is, cannot be affirmed. It requires the 
utmost nobility of soul, nourished by culture of 
the holiest order, and the most sacred and absorb- 
ing faith. She was a true heroine — how nobly 
different from Joan of Arc ! The story of Flor- 



DORCAS. 227 

ence is told by one who has seen her, in these few- 
words : " Her attention was turned to the condi- 
tion of the sick poor in the hospitals, and having 
heard of the institution for training nurses, at 
Kaiserswerth, in Prussia, she visited it, and there 
employed herself in nursing the sick, witnessing 
and assisting at operations, and going through a 
course of medical study. Returning to England 
with the valuable experience thus acquired, she 
accepted the office of matron of a ladies' hospital 
in London, which by her unwearied exertions she 
soon raised from a lingering state to one of effi- 
ciency and great usefulness. She was actively 
engaged in these self-sacrificing toils when the 
war with Russia broke out, and some members 
of the government, knowing her capabilities, re- 
quested her to take the « office of superintendent 
of the nursing department, which, with little hes- 
itation, she accepted. All are familiar with her 
self-denying and arduous labors in the hospitals 
of Scutari, and on the heights of Balaklava, bring- 
ing order and comfort out of the chaos of mis- 
management she found, and calling forth the 
gratitude and reverence of the sick soldiers, 
whose wants she so tenderly alleviated, and whose 
habits and morals she was so successful in im- 
proving. 

" Returning to England, she was greeted with 



228 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

a universal outburst of respect and love ; but she 
shrinks from all marks of public distinction, pre- 
ferring even to employ the large sums of money, 
given as a testimonial of the public appreciation 
of her services, in founding and supporting an 
institution for the better training of nurses." 

Holy, happy woman ! Worthy to stand with 
Mary and Martha, who entertained our Lord him- 
self, and fit companion of the noble sisters of 
mercy, who have loved to do good better than life 
itself. Such women make us more like our Sa- 
viour. They seem to elevate and adorn our na- 
ture ; they are God-gifts, and when they die here, 
will live sweeter and purer on high. 

"I thank thee, blessed God, for these rich gifts, 
Whereby my spirit unto thee is drawn ! 
I thank thee that the loveliness of earth 
Higher than earth can raise me ! Are not these 
But germs of things unperishing, that bloom 
Beside th'immortal streams ? Shall I not find 
The lily of the field, the Saviour's flower, 
In the clear, starry light of angel eyes 
A thousand fold more glorious ? " 

Florence Nightingale may not be comely in 
person — of that we know nothing. But all 
know that she has a beautiful soul, which is infi- 
nitely better than a beautiful face. That excel- 
lent work, which all ladies should read with care, 
- — the Mother's Journal, — draws a contrast be- 



DORCAS. 229 

tween a beautiful face and a beautiful soul; be- 
tween a beautiful woman and a beautiful disciple ; 
one having the beauty of person, and one the 
beauty of the heart. How true it is, that there 
are many beautiful women who are deformed in 
soul, and corrupt or inefficient in principle ! How 
true, how striking, how sad, yet how beautiful, 
the contrast presented here ! " Emily was a 
beautiful disciple. All who knew her thought so ; 
and all who spoke of her said, ' What an excel- 
lent, good girl Emily is ! what an agreeable girl ! 
How active she is in the church, for a young dis- 
ciple ! She is a lovely girl.' 

" Now, what was it that made Emily a beauti- 
ful disciple ? No one called her a beautiful girl, 
though she had a sweet expression of counte- 
nance, and her whole appearance was exceedingly 
agreeable. Nor did she wear beautiful clothing, 
though she was always well dressed, very neatly, 
and in good taste. Yet her pastor said, ' Emily 
is a beautiful young disciple.' And so said the 
old members of the church ; so said the poor, and 
the sick, and the neglected ; so said the superin- 
tendent of the Sabbath school, and many of the 
poor, ragged little children that she had sought 
out. 

" Emily did not wear as rich raiment as many 
others that worshipped in the same congregation 



230 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

■with her ; nor did she pay as much attention to, 
or seem to think as much of, what she did wear as 
many others. But she had paid especial attention 
to one kind of clothing, and the way of wearing 
it, whiclf ' many greatly neglected, but which had 
so beautified her that all admired and praised her. 
She had an old book of fashions that she had care- 
fully studied — studied it every day, and clothed 
herself according to its styles. It was not Godey's, 
nor Graham's, nor the latest Paris. True, the 
book was old, and the styles were old, and some 
young ladies thought them not in good taste ; but 
all agreed that Emily looked beautiful in them. 
They were simple and cheap, and still better, they 
were the same the whole year round. 

" And this was the rule and instruction of Em- 
ily's book, on the subject of personal decoration :' 
1 Whose adorning, let it not be that outward 
adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of 
gold, or of putting on apparel ; but let it be the 
hidden man of the heart, in that which is not 
corruptible ; even the ornament of a meek and 
quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great 
price.' Now, this was Emily's standard. And it 
is sad to think that the times and the styles have 
so changed as to make this fashion of dress and 
adornment so little valued and practised by soci- 
ety ; especially when it is declared that God so 
highly esteems and prizes it. 



DORCAS. 231 

" Roselle worshipped in the same congregation, 
and was a member of the same church with Em- 
ily. Roselle was a very good girl, and a fine 
young lady. Roselle was sometimes called beau- 
tiful. 

" ' What beautiful girl was that came into 
church just as they were singing the second time, 
and sat in the middle aisle, about half way up ? ' 
asked a stranger, at the close of service. That 
was Roselle. She was splendidly dressed, had a 
fine form, and could not fail to attract attention, 
wherever she went. But did you notice that girl 
sitting in range of her, back near the door, just 
under the gallery ? No, of course you would not. 
She came in before service commenced, and took 
a seat back. Her dress would attract no atten- 
tion, except for its plainness. The pastor saw 
her ; how eagerly she listened to every word of 
the discourse ; how the smile of faith and hope 
beamed upon her countenance as he spoke of the 
rest that remaineth. That was Emily. The 
stranger that sat in the pulpit also noticed her — 
noticed them both. Roselle was a beautiful girl ; 
Emily was a beautiful disciple. 

" Roselle came into church late, just before the 
text was named, holding in her hand a rich fan, 
and, sweeping up the aisle with a queenly step, 
attracted some envious glances, even in the house 



232 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

of God ; had it been in the drawing room, or the 
concert room, in the halls of Newport, or of Sara- 
toga, she would have commanded universal admi- 
ration. 

" Emily came in before the first singing, hold- 
ing in her hand a small Bible and a question book, 
for she had just come from the Sabbath school. 
Eoselle does not attend the Sabbath school. Em- 
ily brought in with her two or three little children 
from the school, that had no one else to look after 
them ; and when service was over, she was in- 
quiring of a little girl about her sick mother, and 
then trying to persuade a larger girl to attend the 
Bible class. 

" ' How much good your sermon did me this 
morning ! ' said Emily to her pastor, as he came 
down the aisle, and extended his hand to her. 
What a thrill of delight those words sent through 
his heart ; for that morning he had felt unusually 
discouraged and depressed, had severely con- 
demned himself, and thought his preaching was 
doing no good. Roselle said, when she reached 
home, she thought < our minister was unusually 
dull this morning.' Indeed, she could recollect 
but very little of the discourse, but seemed to 
have a very distinct recollection of, and spoke 
with great earnestness respecting, several new hats 
and cloaks which she observed at church. 



DORCAS. 233 

" Poor old Mrs. Drake was sick — very sick, 
and very poor. One of the ladies asked alms of 
Roselle for her, and asked her if she would not 
call and see Mrs. Drake, and cheer her spirits. 
Roselle gave the money, for she had really a gen- 
erous heart. ' my ! ' she said, ' I couldn't think 
of going into a sick room. I should be sure to 
get sick myself; and I dislike so much to go into 
sick rooms ! ' But when the pastor called on old 
Mrs. Drake, she said, ' Miss Emily does comfort 
me so much ! She comes in almost every day to 
see me ; and she sews for me, and then she reads 
the Bible to me, and sings so sweetly, " Jesus, 
refuge of my soul." I enjoy it so much ! And 
she told me all over your beautiful sermon Sun- 
day morning. It did comfort me so. I wanted 
to be with you in the sanctuary, but I couldn't.' " 

The honored name of Dorothea L. Dix may 
be mentioned among the sisters of charity worthy 
of enduring praise. Her field of labor, self- 
chosen, was different from that occupied by the 
missionary or the mother. She sought the good 
of others in ways from which many shrink, and 
into which they never direct their steps. Mrs. 
Hale tells us that " Miss Dix prepared a number 
of books for children, among which were " Con- 
versations about Common Things," " Alice and 
Ruth," " Evening Hours," and several others. 
Her name was not given to any of her works, 



234 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

but we allude to them to show that a refined lit- 
erary taste and genius are compatible with the 
most active philanthropy, even when compelled to 
seek its objects through researches that are both 
painful and terrible. 

"The declining health of Miss Dix made a 
change necessary ; and as, by the decease of her 
relative, she had been left sufficiently provided 
for to render her own exertions unnecessary for 
herself, she gave up her school in 1834, and went 
to Europe. In Liverpool, she was confined by a 
long and dangerous illness ; but notwithstanding 
her weak condition, she gained, while abroad, 
much valuable information, particularly about 
charitable institutions. In 1837 she returned to 
Boston, and soon commenced visiting the poor- 
house and houses of refuge for the unfortunate. 
She also became interested for the boys in the 
naval asylum. Then she went to the prisons and 
lunatic asylums ; every where seeking to amelio- 
rate suffering and instruct the ignorant. In this 
course of benevolence she was encouraged by her 
particular friend, and, we believe, pastor, the Rev. 
William E. Channing, of whose two children she 
had at one time been the governess. For about 
ten years, or since 1841, Miss Dix has given her 
thoughts, time, and influence, to ameliorate the 
condition of poor lunatics, and to persuade the 
public to furnish suitable asylums ; also to im- 



DORCAS. 235 

prove the moral discipline of prisons and places 
of confinement for criminals. For this purpose 
she has visited every state in the Union, except 
one, this side of the Rocky Mountains, travelling, 
probably, a number of miles which would three 
times circle the globe. Every where seeking out 
intelligent and benevolent men, she has endeav- 
ored to infuse into their hearts the enthusiasm 
that kindled her own. Visiting the poorhouses, 
the prisons, the places of confinement for the in- 
sane, she has learned their condition, pleaded 
their cause, and materially incited the exertions 
of individuals and communities." Thus has she 
been a sister of charity, an angel of mercy. 

How noble such a woman appears, going from 
hovel to hovel, from prison to prison, visiting the 
poor only to do them good ; visiting the rich only 
to enlist their sympathies, and draw out their aid 
in behalf of suffering humanity ! She was often 
repulsed, but her heart held steadily, bravely on, 
realizing* that 



j & 



" There is a flower, when trampled on, 

Doth still more richly bloom, 
And even to its bitterest foe 

Gives forth its sweet perfume. 
The rose that's crashed and shattered 

Doth on the breeze bestow 
A fairer scent, that further goes, 

Even for the cruel blow." 



236 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FBIEND. 

Elizabeth Fry also has an enduring name 
among the women who have grown rich in holy 
deeds. Gifted, beautiful, and beloved, she lived 
a beautiful life, and left behind her a fragrant 
memory. Her record is best given in the lan- 
guage of one of those forlorn sisters whom she 
met at Newgate : the incident will show how 
beautiful the soul of such a woman must have 
been, who could produce an impression so soft and 
true on a heart so hard and obdurate. The rec- 
ord of Mrs. Fry is exceedingly saint-like. The 
narrative to which we refer is given by a poor, 
deluded Roman Catholic, whose prejudices were 
conquered, whose heart was reached, by kindness 
and sympathy. " We looked upon her," says 
this poor creature, " with doubt ; and this fear on 
our part made her do less among us than she oth- 
erwise would ; for, bad as we were, we looked 
upon it as the last fall to give up our faith. Now, 
she had a remarkable way about her — a sort of 
speaking that you could hardly help listening to, 
whether you would or no ; for she was not only 
good, but downright clever. Well, just to avoid 
listening when she was speaking or reading, I 
learned to count twelve backward and onward, so 
that my mind would be quite taken up ; and I 
actually went on till I could thus count six hun- 
dred with great ease. It was a pity we had such 



DORCAS. 237 

a dread. Well, she had a way of speaking to one 
of us alone, and I was anxious to shuffle this lec- 
ture ; the fact was, I expected she would put 
many questions, and, as I respected her character 
too much altogether to tell her a lie, I kept from 
the sermon, as we in derision used to call it. But 
when she was taking leave of us, she just called 
me on one side, saying she would like to speak a 
few words to me. ' So,' says I to myself, ' caught 
at last ! ' Well, she came close to me, and, look- 
ing at me in a very solemn sort of a way, she laid 
her hands upon my shoulders, and gave me a 
pressure that told that she felt for me; her 
thumbs were set firm and hard on my shoulders, 
and yet her fingers seemed to have a feeling of 
kindness for me. But it was no lecture she gave 
me ; all she said was, ' Let not thine eyes covet.' 
No other words passed her lips ; but then her 
voice was solemn and awful, kind as a mother's, 
yet just like a judge. 

" Well, when I got to the colony, I went on 
right enough for a time ; but one day I was look- 
ing into a work box belonging to my mistress, and 
the gold thimble tempted me. It was on my fin- 
ger and in my pocket in an instant ; and just as 
I was going to shut down the box lid, as sure as 
I am telling you, I felt Mrs. Fry's thumbs on my 
shoulders — the gentle, pleading touch of her 



238 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

fingers. I looked about me, threw down the 
thimble, and trembled with terror to find I was 
alone in the room. Careless, insolent, and bad 
enough, I became often in the factory. Well, do 
you see, at night we used to amuse each other by 
telling our tricks, urging one another on in vice. 
Among us we had one uncommon bright girl, a 
first rate mimic, and she used to make us roar 
with laughter. Well, this fun had been going on 
for many weeks ; she had gone through most of 
her characters, from the governor to the turnkey, 
when she commenced taking off Parson Cowper 
and Father Therry. Some way it did not take ; 
so she went back to Newgate, and came to Mrs. 
Fry, to the very life ; but it would not do ; we 
did not seem to enjoy it ; there was no fun for us. 
So then she began about the ship's leaving, and 
our mothers crying, and begging us to turn over 
a new leaf; and then, in a mimicking, jesting 
sport, she sobbed, and bade us good by. Well, 
how it happened I know not, but one after the 
other we began to cry ; and < Stay, stay ! not my 
. mother,' said one. ' Let Mrs. Fry alone. Father 
Therry must not be brought here, nor Parson 
Cowper; stay, stay.' Well, she did not stop; 
but tears were shed the whole of that night. 
Every thing had been tried with me. Good peo- 
ple had sought in vain to convince me of my evil 



DORCAS. 239 

ways ; but that girl's ridicule of my mother I 
could not stand. Her grief was brought home to 
me, and not to me alone, but to many. I do be- 
lieve that night was a great blessing to many. I 
was so unhappy, that the next clay I tried to get 
out of sight to pray ; and when I got a hiding 
place, I found three girls on their knees. We 
comforted each other ; and then we spoke of our 
mothers. Mine was dead. She left this world 
believing me past hope ; but the picture of her 
grief made me earnest in search of that peace 
which endureth forever." 

Few women have a nobler monument than is 
here given of Mrs. Fry, by one who scorned her 
instructions, and turned a deaf ear to all her 
warnings. Such a woman belongs to a holy sis- 
terhood, and deserves a high enrolment among 
the noblest sisters of charity. 

The world has yet to learn what true nobil- 
ity is. It is not found in kingly palaces alone, 
but true-hearted men and women have shown 
what real greatness means. Mrs. Fry has a no- 
bler character than the gilded women who have 
shared imperial thrones. She has a better name 
and fame than Victoria or Eugenia. Wealth and 
station do not constitute real greatness. It takes 
something more to make a man ; infinitely more 
to make a woman. 



240 THE YOUNG WOMAN' S FRIEND. 

" What is noble ? To inherit 

"Wealth, estate, and proud degree ? 
There must be some other merit 

Higher yet than these for me. 
Something greater far must enter 

Into life's majestic span, 
Fitted to create and centre 

True nobility in man. 

" What is noble ? 'Tis the finer 

Portion of our mind and heart ; 
Linked to something still diviner 

Than mere language can impart ; 
Ever prompting, ever seeing 

Some improvement yet to plan, 
To uplift our fellow-being, 

And, like man, to feel for man. 

" What is noble ? Is the sabre , 

Nobler than the humble spade ? 
There's a dignity in labor 

Truer than e'er pomp arrayed. 
He who seeks the mind's improvement 

Aids the world in aiding mind : 
Every great commanding movement 

Serves not one, but all mankind. " 

Eebecca Eaton is a name that deserves to be 
widely known and highly honored. It belonged 
to one who has lately been laid beneath the sod, 
and whose spirit but recently fled to join the 
loved ones on high. She chose a different field 
of Christian labor from any of the women we 
have mentioned. Her life-work consisted in holy 
endeavors to raise the fallen women of the New 



DORCAS. 241 

England metropolis ; and many a poor, friendless 
girl, deceived and lost, has she found and led 
back to virtue and to God. It is not our purpose 
in these sketches to act the part of the biographer ; 
else many a beautiful deed in the life of Miss 
Eaton might be described. As the editress of 
the " Friend of Virtue," and the leader in moral 
reform movements, she is well known, and many 
a poor, wretched girl has reformed through her 
influence and holy endeavors. Her work was 
with the fallen ones of her own sex, and nobly 
did she perform it. She went out into the streets 
of Boston to win the lost. 

This work is by many women despised and neg- 
lected. If a sister falls, all shrink from her as 
from a contamination worse than death, and the 
poor girl, who might have been saved, is driven 
to madness and despair. 0, how many a loved 
one is wrecked entirely by unkindness ! Deceived, 
but repentant, guilty, but longing for virtue, she 
finds none to say kind words, or do for her a kind 
act. Who has not seen such a person, beautiful 
even in her guilt and wretchedness ? 



" In the crowded street I met her, 
Just as twilight veiled the sky, 
Never, never to forget her, 
And the tear drops in her eye. 

16 



242 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

"Fair as summer's fairest blossom, 
Played the curls upon her brow, 
"While beneath them heaved a bosom 
Whose deep anguish thrills me now." 

If some friendly hand was outstretched, the 
lost one might be saved ; but priest and Levite 
pass by on the other side, and ere long a sad story 
of suicide or utter abandonment to vice. The 
hearts of parents break as they see the sad wreck 
of their child, and hail her death with pleasure 
— a death that is better than such a life. 



" Bitter, bitter days they bear it, 
Grief the world may never know, 
Till the bier, with sable o'er it, 
Ease their burden here below." 



The story is told, and the sad case is a warning 
to those who heed it not, while only here and 
there is one to stop and ask — 

" O, my God, is this a story, 
Or a sight for every day ? 
This a part of human glory ? 
Let the tongue of ages say ! " 

Miss Eaton has honorably devoted herself to 
the work of saving from utter destruction this 
class of sinning, suffering women ; and though 
almost alone, she has toiled and struggled to 



DORCAS. 243 

accomplish the object. And how much such mis- 
sionaries of salvation are needed ! The class 
which she endeavored to save is fearfully large, 
as we have abundant reason to fear. Multitudes 
of young women are growing up for vice and 
degradation. What one says of a great central 
city is true, to a greater or less degree, of all 
our cities : " One of the most pitiable and painful 
sights in this city is the thousand and one bare- 
footed, filthy, and ragged children, plying old 
brooms at the street crossings in all stormy 
weather. Running among the omnibuses and 
carriages, they perform the better part of what 
street cleaning is done, — to the shame of our au- 
thorities be it said, — and their remuneration con- 
sists of the few pennies pedestrians drop in their 
palms. Hundreds of these young female unfor- 
tunates may be counted in New York on any 
rainy day; for they are chiefly girls, most of 
them under ten years of age, but many of them 
twelve, fourteen, and still older. Yet they have 
boy associates enough to educate them in all the 
vulgarity and viciousness of their sex ; and be- 
tween their own depravity, ingrained in them by 
a life almost from infancy in the streets, and that 
caught from their male companions, they present 
a picture of debasement which might delight a 
fiend bent on the annihilation of humanity. 



244 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND 

" Low slang, obscenity, and blasphemy of the 
coarsest kind is their current language from morn- 
ing till night. Any good citizen, or Christian, 
passing down Broadway, if he is not in such haste 
to reach Wall Street that he can neither see nor 
hear beyond his ruling thought, — money making, 

— may stop at any hour of a stormy day, and be 
convinced that we do not exaggerate. "When the 
night comes, these children scatter to their haunts 

— where ? Some to homes as filthy as the streets 
they have been sweeping, where drunken fathers 
and mothers eagerly seize the earnings of their 
children's sin and shame, to prolong their beastly 
orgies ; but many of them, already reckless of 
home, seek dens of vice. 

" The grand result is a hideous and loathsome 
humor on the rising generation, which spreads 
itself far wider and deeper, by contact and exam- 
ple, than appears on the surface. Other children, 
not yet driven by brutal parents, nor by want or 
depraved instinct, to herd with the street sweep- 
ers, learn to imitate their slang, and are soon led 
into their grossest vices. There are plenty of 
full-grown brutes, in the shape of men, who may 
be found in the haunts resorted to by these girls, 
and who encourage them by every art in their 
life of deformity. The details which any mission- 
ary might pick up in one day and night would be 



DORCAS. 245 

too shocking to repeat. Not one in the thousand 
of our population has the smallest conception of 
the disgusting scenes enacted by these deformed 
images of God in this great city." 

And who shall save the lost ? In her elevated 
work, Rebecca Eaton has fallen, as noble a sister 
of charity as ever made the earth resound with 
deeds of benevolence ; as noble a spirit as that of 
Dorothea Dix or Florence Nightingale. 



We have presented this group of noble women, 
each the representative of a distinct class, and in 
each case where it was possible, allowed them to 
speak for themselves, as the best method of giving 
a glimpse of the character of each, and present- 
ing in their own language, or that of some one 
conversant with them, the beautiful moral fea- 
tures for which they were each distinguished. 

The virtues of these women still live. Their 
example has an influence on the world, and as 
they depart to their reward, one after another, 
new heroines arise to fill their places. We some- 
times bewail the dead, as if goodness and great- 
ness were buried with them. But all that is 
great and good survives, and has an influence, 
and we in our turn shall live for others. 



246 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND, 

" All of the past is living still, 

All that is good and true ; 
The rest hath perished, and it did 

Deserve to perish, too. 
The world rolls ever round and round, 

And time rolls ever by ; 
And the wrong is ever rooted up, 

But the Truth doth never die ! " 

Our great duty in this life is to reproduce the 
good lives and deeds of others in our own lives 
and deeds ; to make the world better by our having 
lived in it ; to be reformers where abuses exist 
and wrongs prevail. The world is an on-moving 
world, and though some men resist its progress, 
they are borne along upon its beautiful swell 
towards a better state. There are enemies of 
progress ; they see no good in the world's convul- 
sions. A writer in a popular journal, while op- 
posing the introduction of the vaccine inocula- 
tion, remarked, " that he was determined to go 
to church through the same dirty road where his 
ancestors trudged before him ; that if his ances- 
tors had worshipped Beelzebub, he would have 
worshipped Beelzebub also ; that he wished to 
practise physic as he always had practised it ; and 
that he was a sworn enemy to innovation in reli- 
gion, politics, and physic" 

But such a man is deriving his chief blessings 
from these innovations ; they minister to his com- 



DORCAS. 247 

fort, and yield him pleasure. Change has come 
— change for the better ; and though wrong still 
lives, and the world is still in darkness, yet the 
watcher is heard saying, " The morning cometh." 

0, how true it is that the true life-lessons are in 
many cases yet to be learned ; that even our be- 
nevolence is to be purified, and our religion 
Christianized ! Woman has a mission still, and 
she will always have a work, till woe shall end 
and sorrow cease. 

But how cold, selfish, and cruel many women 
seem, when compared with the noble sisters of 
charity here enumerated ! Buried in Russian 
sables, or decked in silks and satins, how many a 
woman turns from the poor with contempt, or 
allows her selfishness to follow her to the very 
altar of the church of God ! How characteristic 
is a circumstance recorded in a city paper re- 
cently, and how strikingly does it show how little 
heart some apparently devout people have ! It is 
said that " a young man, accompanied by two 
ladies, visited one of our fashionable churches, to 
hear a noted divine. Seats were assigned them 
by the gentlemanly sexton. Scarcely were they 
seated, when a woman, dressed in the height of 
fashion, entered the pew, and immediately knelt, 
joining in the prayer read by the pastor. She 
appeared to feel very uncomfortable, for some 



248 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

reason, which afterwards appeared. The prayer 
being ended, she arose from her kneeling posi- 
tion, and said to the young man, ' If you please, 
won't you go out? This pew belongs to us.' 
Thereupon the gentleman and ladies immediately 
left, in search of a pew large enough to accom- 
modate strangers." 

And if a poor, woe-begone person enters the 
house of God, how few there are to open the pew 
door, and let him in ! Selfishness follows the cold 
heart to the sanctuary, and locks the door, and 
bolts out the suffering ones who are starving for 
the bread of heaven. Nowhere does this selfish- 
ness appear so hideous as in church, when, in the 
presence of God, Dives sits with his foot on the 
neck of Lazarus. How striking the picture, 
drawn, it is said, by " one who could produce 
nothing impure, one who does not pray ' from a 
gold-clasped book,' but from a heart 

* full of song, 
And gratitude, upon her very lips ' " ! 

How often is the picture realized in the midst 
of plenty and ease, and how often is the spirit 
displayed by those who boast of their good works 
and benevolent deeds ! who have names high en- 
rolled among those who claim to be public ben- 
efactors. 



DORCAS. 249 

" A weary beggar, wandering up and down, 

Helpless and homeless, worn by years of toil ! 
The lady turns aside with haughty frown, 
Lest his coarse clothes her costly robes should soil 

" The lady sits within a cushioned pew, 

And worships God with a complacent look, 
And reads her prayers, with a selected few, 
Not from her heart, but from a gold-clasped book 

" She hears the story of the * meek of heart/ 

Who walked amid earth's poor with patient feet, 
And bowed his head, for us, to death's keen dart ; 
Yet she forgets the wanderer in the street. 

" The poor man lifts his toil-worn hand to heaven, 
Standing alone and in the open air, 
Voicelessly prays his sins may be forgiven ; 
And He who sees the heart will heed his prayer. 

" The God-filled pages of kind nature's book 
Lie open e'er to the unlettered poor ; 
And, once revealed to man's adoring look, 
No clasp of gold will ever close them more, 

" God looks not at the clothing which we wear; 
All must put off their garments at the tomb ; 
The same sun shines on all, the same sweet air 
Lifteth the beggar's locks, the lady's plume I 

"A monument of costly marble shows 

The place where sleeps the lady fair at last ; 
But in a nameless grave, in calm repose, 
Unknown, unloved, the beggar's form is cast. 

" Lone spot ! yet all the lady's gems and gold 
Were vain to buy an epitaph more fair 
Than that by God's own hand each spring unrolled 
In flowery language 'bove the sleeper there ! " 



250 THE YOUNG WOMAN'S FRIEND. 

that all the women of the world were " sisters 
of charity " ! that selfishness and sin were 
banished from our hearts, and from the world ! 
that we might realize the true nobility of man- 
hood, and the true beauty, dignity, and glory of 
womanhood ! 



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